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Constance of Acadia. 



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Copyright^ 1886, 

By Roberts Brothers. 


John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 


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CONTENTS. 


Page 

I. Light over a Western Sea 9 

II. An Interview before Breakfast ... 14 

III. Wreaths of Smoke 19 

IV. Their Gossips 28 

V. A Paternal and Filial Fight .... 38 

VI. The Wastes of the World 45 

VII. The Souriquois 53 

VIII. Marchioness de Guercheville .... 64 

IX. A Floating Jesuit 72 

X. The Night Watch ......... 81 

XI. A Feudal Castle 89 

XII. The Queen of Acadia 95 

XIII. OuANGONDY . . . r 102 

XIV. Jemsek 109 

XV. The Cardinal 119 

XVI. The Acadian Wild 126 

XVII. Roderigo Palladio 139 

XVIII. Richelieu’s Echo 145 

XIX. Charnac6 and his Snow Shoes . . . 153 

XX. The Blockade 167 


vi CONTENTS. 

Page 

XXL Governor Winthrop’s Garden . . 175 

XXII. Captain Hawkins 185 

XXIII. A Puritan Debating Society . . . 190 

XXIV. Setting Sail 202 

XXV. Passageewakeag 215 

XXVI. Versailles 222 

XXVII. La Rochelle 231 

XXVIII. The Acadian Wreath 243 

XXIX. Baron Charnac^ 252 

XXX. The Middle of the Sea 260 

^ XXXI. The Suit of the Dolphin .... 271 

XXXII. Castine 281 

XXXIII. Rio Hermoso 287 

XXXIV. Artillery Practice 295 

XXXV. Constance and Charles of La Ro- 
chelle 307 

XXXVI. The Tides of Fundy 312 

XXXVII. In THE Ice 316 

XXXVIII. The Jesuit Fathers say Mass for 

THE Repose of the Deah .... 324 

XXXIX. The Widow Bernieres 333 

XL. Before Sunrise and after Sunset . 342* 

XLI. La Tour 352 


To THE Reader 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 



CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


I. 


LIGHT OVER A WESTERN SEA. 

HEN shall I call you Lieutenant General of 



V V Acadia ? ” asked the bride Constance of her 
husband, as they reclined upon shelving rocks near 
the mouth of the Penobscot, looking toward the 
southwest long after the sun had gone down. Be- 
yond the salt sea there was still a silent sea of dull 
crimson in the sky ; but the lambent flames so long 
playing upon the surface of the waters had been 
nearly quenched in the gathering night. The fuU 
moon — their honeymoon — was rising in the east ; 
but it was not yet dark enough for them to notice 
their luminary, — theirs in a peculiar sense in months 
of early marriage. 

“ My father should bring the commission soon,” 
replied Charles la Tour. " The Shoals vessel from 
La Rochelle, that hove to this morning, outside, 
brought news that having obtained the commission, 
he was captured on the high seas, and carried prisoner 
to England ; but had been released upon the repre- 


10 


COJ^ STANCE OF ACADIA, 


sentation made by your old townsman Pierre Gaudet, 
that my father was allied to the Bouillon family. 
The English take kindly to Huguenot noblemen ; 
an(f none the less so if they know anything about 
Acadia. I look for him almost any day.” 

The Guardian Angel who had watched, and waited 
upon, Constance for twenty-five years, must have ob- 
served, even in the gloaming, the color deepen in her 
face when Charles pronounced the home words, " La 
Eochelle,” and “ Pierre Gaudet ; ” but the color had 
faded again when he came to the word “Acadia.” 

Like a person whose body was in Acadia, and 
whose heart, will or nill, must be where her body was, 
— she asked mechanically, — “ And what will Charles 
do 'when he gets to be Lieutenant General ? ” 

There was no one of finer discernment of the hidden 
meaning of tones, of faces, of attitudes, than Charles 
la Tour, whenever his absorbing business plans al- 
lowed him to think of anything else than his gains, 
or when a keen perception of the mental state of any 
one he conversed with was likely to help him in a 
business way. 

“ You speak, my Constance, of a third person : 
‘ What will Charles do ? ’ You are dreaming of 
La Eochelle, and of the old man Gaudet.” And, 
turning so as to see his wife’s face, he took her hand 
in his, pressing it warmly. “ These home words 
make you speak of me impersonally, as if I were as 
far off as your father’s house ; or, as far off,” — look- 
ing deeply into her dark eyes as the light upon the 


LIGHT OVER A WESTERN SEA. H 

water westward was reflected upon them, — “ as your 
childhood loves.” 

The poor wife, — I had almost said child- wife, 
since Charles was tall and the type of manly beauty, 
and Constance was in comparison so much shorter 
and smaller as to seem childlike to him, although 
she averaged well with her countrywomen of the 
Bay of Biscay,"-^ closed her eyes, and her Guardian 
Angel must have wiped away a tear-drop. 

Charles did not see it, but he saw visions beyond 
the reach of sight — far over sea. 

But Charles la Tour, who had high aspirations, had 
not married for love, not he ; he had, indeed, said that 
he loved. He was not without love. But Constance 
• had taken his fancy as being the brightest and best 
judge of furs who had ever appeared in Acadia; and 
he was in the fur-business. And as to fish, she knew 
well the La Eochelle market, and was a judge of 
values, and of seasons, — in a word she knew a cod 
from a haddock ; and he was making a vast deal of 
money in fish. Out of the five thousand men in the 
eastern fisheries some two hundred and fifty years 
ago, he and his father, and their Port Eoyal partner 
the son of Poutrincourt, employed one twentieth. 

La Tour really loved Constance, more or less ; why 
should he not ? Toward her his heart was not 
divided with any other of womankind. But he was 
through and through a business man ; and his whole 
soul was in his affairs. He had no such sentiment, 
or believed then that he had none, as would lead 


12 CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 

him to object to his wife’s having a great variety of 
French loves, if that should please her French fancy. 
But little did he know of Constance Bernon, — even 
if he did look deeply into her eyes. 

The moon had come forth in all her strength, illu- 
minating the hay of the Penobscot ; and Charles could 
discern far away upon the southern waters the gleam 
of the paddle-stroke, as Joe Takouchin was coming 
up with the flood from Long Island. 

“ What will Charles do when he gets to be Lieu- 
tenant General of Acadia ? ” asked Charles, repeating 
his wife’s interrogation. “He will get to be very 
rich in a monopoly of fur and fish, and in great land- 
grants ; and then he will erect Castle La Tour at the 
mouth of one of the great Acadian rivers ; then a 
feudal lord and lady will preside over Acadia; and 
then the house of Bouillon need not be ashamed 
of having poor relations. My father was once as 
rich as any of them. But he was a patriot, and 
lost his property in the civil wars, while some of his 
relatives saved their capons whatever became of their 
country.” 

It is a matter of history that there were few men 
of that age in America, with its little handfuls of 
population scattered along the coast, who were the 
match of Charles la Tour in “ presence,” in “ persua- 
siveness,” in “ affability,” in power to gain the “ con- 
fidence ” of those with whom he had to do. When 
he set out to marry, he was perfect master of the art 
of making his wife believe that he thought everything 


LIGHT OVER A WESTERN SEA. 


13 


of her. He was fond of her, and so perhaps supposed 
that he loved her. He admired her matchless dis- 
cernment as a business woman ; if she only had as 
perfect a passion as he for beaver and cod, there need 
be no limit to their acquisitions in the vast area of 
inland waters and the great fishing-banks at their 
doors. She was, if anything, too spiritually-minded, 
as she called it ; too Huguenotish, as he called it. 

Here was to La Tour a solid business reason for 
marriage ; as Baron de Castin married the daughter 
of Madocawondo, upon business grounds. Constance 
being a woman he liked her more than he would a 
man, and more and more as long as she lived ; but 
he never loved her, was never devoted to her. 

But Constance was deserving of the profoundest 
love ; it is no wonder that her Guardian Angel stood 
by her and thought himself better off than in heaven, 
— so that one loved her, who was worthy. One who 
was mk worthy also loved her, — although not her 
husband. 


14 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


IL 


AN INTERVIEW BEFORE BREAKFAST. 

HE day-dawn, with all the colors of heaven 



^ reflected upon the Bay, found the bride alone, 
looking far eastward, as if by looking far enough she 
could have seen the weather-vane above the pointed 
roof of her father’s house near the Lantern, close by 
the solid sea-wall in that well-armed, rich, and enter- 
prising Huguenot city La Rochelle, mistress of so 
many seas, and fair to look upon in the eyes of any 
lover of the true greatness of France. 

The Lieutenant General, whose commission had 
not arrived in the thirty-sixth month of patient 
waiting, had arisen before day, in his eager attention 
to the gains of his trade; and he was now seeking- 
out the intricate windings of the Biguyduce,^ with 
his birch. 

1 An arm of the sea, now known as Bagaduce, east of Castine. 
Williamson thinks it was named for some French Major — Bigay- 
duce. The peninsula between this river and the Penobscot Bay on 
the west being known to history as the Majabigaduce. The older 
name of the Biguyduce River appears to have been Matchebiguntus. 
The attempt of an eminent Indian scholar to identify this word 
with Williamson’s French Major is creditable. 


AN INTERVIEW BEFORE BREAKFAST. 15 

Constance cast her eyes downward, when the sun 
shone full-blaze athwart the eastern waters ; and she 
forgot her father’s house in the broad daylight. 

It could not but occur to her that, after all, it 
evinced good judgment that she had sailed in one 
of her father’s ships to a new world, to forget that 
dream which had taken definite shape, after having 
haunted her for more than ten years, a dream of 
being wedded to one whom she would have loved if 
he had not been, as she believed, an utter stranger to 
her God. The Huguenot faith, \er own faith, not 
that of another, would not allow her to love one, or 
rather link her destiny to one, who did not make God 
the supreme choice of his soul. Of all the selfish, 
idolatrous, papistic, Jesuitical persons she ever saw, 
her would-be lover was the best. She would never 
confess to herself that she loved him; and she left 
the country to be rid of him. He, apparently, was 
fully devoted to her, protesting his affection in strange 
heart-felt tones, which she had not yet heard from 
the business-like professional lover Charles la Tour. 

She thought to herself, bending her steps toward 
the great hearth where her breakfast was smoking, — 
“ Charles la Tour is a Protestant ; and I think that 
he is religious. He is gifted, and apparently devout, 
in prayer. He is fiuently religious ; and I shall not 
soon believe that his Vaudois blood has been all 
sopped up by the furs of Acadia. I did wisely in 
this new world to take the world as I find it, and 
to marry in the line of my religious duty ; and I have 


16 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


made my vows to God that I will be to my husband 
a minister of good. I have taken him for better or 
for worse ; and, if it is for worse, I am sure it will be 
my fault.” 

Her train of pious and wifely reflection was inter- 
rupted by the sound of a ship’s gun. Wheeling from 
her solitary seat at the table, she saw two English 
ships heavily armed, which had just rounded the 
western headland ; and were now standing in for the 
fort. Eor the sake of running before the wind, and 
avoiding the islets of the lower Bay on the east, they 
had ascended the western channel by moonlight. 

Constance despatched at once a messenger to her 
husband. There might be work in hand for the 
King’s Lieutenant. These men-of-war had appeared 
suddenly, like Megunticut thunder-clouds ; canvas 
clouds illuminated by the sun, but filled with 
lightnings and the peal of battle. 

When the ships hove to, and lowered two boats, 
Constance went toward the landing alone to meet 
them. An English baronet was in the foremost boat, 
with the English flag flying over his head. 

Constance waved her hand ; and her gunner, upon 
the platform fronting Pentagoliet ^ next the* sea, fired 
a shot across the baronet’s bows ; and his men peaked 

^ Pemetigoet or Pentegoet was the name given hy Champlain, in 
1605, to the river which had been known to the Indians as Norem- 
bega. Wheeler (History of Castiiie, Bangor, 1875, p. 14) thinks 
that Pentagoiiet is a combination of Indian and French, meaning 
entrance to the river. 


AN INTERVIEW BEFORE BREAKFAST. 17 

their oars. While the boat swung round to the wind 
upon the uneasy tide, Constance, putting her hand to 
her mouth for a speaking-trumpet, spoke in clear 
penetrating musical English, — 

“ Lay your head off shore ; and land the baronet 
from the stern, then pull off. I will see him alone 
under a flag of truce. If you delay, I will blow you 
out of the water.” 

She raised her hand, and another shot crossed the 
bows of the boat. When, in the next uplifting of her 
hand, she flaunted her white kerchief to the breeze, 
the baronet condescended to land from the stern ; and 
the boat and flag pulled off, and Constance was alone 
with the stranger, who also held out a flag of truce.. 

The English baronet had an important communi- 
cation to make to Chevalier la Tour. 

“My husband cannot be interrupted upon trivial 
business, at this hour,” replied Constance. “ He will 
see you later, if he thinks it important. Your present 
business I will attend to.” 

The baronet rubbed his eyes, and he would have 
ripped out an oath or two if he had been an English- 
man; being a Frenchman, he took out his snuff-box, 
and offered it to Madame la Tour, with a profusion 
of compliments, which led her to abandon her new- 
world direct Anglo-Saxon method of addressing one 
whom she had supposed to be a Saxon. 

It was her father-in-law, Claude la Tour, returned 
with her husband’s commission as Lieutenant General 
of Acadia. 


2 


18 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


“ Will the baronet be so good as to produce the 
commission, as a voucher for his personal identity as 
Claude la Tour ? ” 

The baronet hesitated. Should he negotiate with 
a woman ? 

Will the baronet be so good as to recall his boat, 
. that he may get into it under his own flag, that I 
may proceed to blow him out of the water ? ” 

The baronet looked into the deep dark eyes of 
Madame la Tour. 

“ It would be less work to exhibit the commission ; 
which I will do with pleasure,” he remarked, after 
looking at eyes which never quailed. 

The baronet accepted his fair enemy’s invitation 
to breakfast, when satisfied that his countrywoman 
was his son’s wife. But first he sent to the ship 
for his own wife ; whom he had picked up in Eng- 
land, a maid of honor to Queen Henrietta. 

The sound of the great guns had outstripped the 
messengers of Constance, and Charles la Tour — now 
indeed Lieutenant General — returned in season to 
breakfast with his step-mother, and his de-national- 
ized father, and his own faithful friend and defender 
Constance of La Eochelle. 


WREATHS OF SMOKE. 


19 


III. 

WREATHS OF SMOKE. 

I^TOTHIKG could exceed the self-complacency of 
^ Charles la Tour except the self-complacency 
of his father. '' They were neither of them self-con- 
ceited men — far from that. Self-conceit implies 
something notional, almost whimsical ; but the La 
Tours were thoroughly well-balanced, and the better 
balanced they were, the better satisfied they were 
with themselves.^’’ 

Charles la Tour had a faculty of extracting from 
all circumstances an immense amount of downright 
happiness. If the marines told a true story, when 
they said that La Tour killed an Englishman in order 
to steal a ship, he undoubtedly did it with joy in his 
heart, and a smile at his own deftness in doing it. 
If he had a long and bitter contest with a rival, he 
enjoyed every minute of the time. The fun of fight- 
ing was exquisite. Then his skin was stuffed full of 
satisfaction when he delicately nibbled at sweetmeats 
or sipped wine with Governor Winthrop. And his 
conversations with Constance, whom he never to her 
dying day understood, were sources of rare pleasure ; 
as if, for the moment, his soul bathed in the pure 


20 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


empyrean of a higher range of thought than he had 
known since his mother died at Saint Martin on K^, 
when he was fourteen years old, the day before his 
father sailed for Acadia. 

This happy disposition kept in subordination his 
curiosity to know just how his Vaudois father had 
become a Britisher in crimson and gold. 

As they lighted their tobacco for an after-breakfast 
stroll along shore, between the thick-set hackma- 
tacks and the Bay, the father and son chaffered each 
other upon their respective marriages. 

“ How came you, my dear father, to find such a 
fair faced and attractive Frenchwoman among the 
fogs of England ? ” 

“ She discovered me, my son, by my French accent. 
It was a love match on her part. And I responded 
heartily, since the Queen was very fond of her, and it 
strengthened my position at court. And my wife was 
anxious to see our new world, which I am going to 
turn over to England.” 

“ To England ? ” replied Charles, almost forgetful of 
his even poise. Then recollecting himself, he added. 
That would indeed be very fine. But how do you 
propose to do it ? ” 

“ I have,” said the father, “ not only a baronetcy, 
but a land grant, big enough to make your heart 
jump, to give to you, which will be much better than 
the Lieutenant General’s commission that Louis XIII. 
has sent you. Acadia will certainly be lost to France 
before the present hostilities terminate.” 


WREATHS OF SMOKE. 


21 


“But do you think, father, that I would be a 
traitor to my country for a baronetcy, a few acres of 
bushes in what you propose to call Nova Scotia ? ” 

“ Traitor ! country 1 You have no country but the 
soil your feet cover, and what you own in our new 
world,” replied the father. “You can dissemble to 
the French King. I learned in the Maritime Alps to 
call no man my king except as I could make kings 
my subjects. What kings are for is to help the La 
Tour family. Louis and Charles are both my ser- 
vants, and yours too, if you will make them such.” 
And he rattled his sword in its scabbard when he 
said this. 

“Indeed, indeed,” answered the Lieutenant Governor 
of Acadia, “was it not upon the very ground that 
I was to keep Acadia for France, that I based my 
petition to my king ? ” 

“Are you then settled that you will not surrender?” 
asked the baronet, in alarm. “Do you know, sir, 
since you claim to be a man of honor, that I obtained 
this land -grant and a baronetcy for you, and for my- 
self also, upon my pledge that you would surrender 
this fort to His Britannic Majesty? And do you 
know, sir, that these men-of-war have crossed the 
ocean for the express purpose of taking possession of 
this fort ? I entreat you to surrender, and keep the 
engagement I have made for you with my king, and 
my newly adopted country. I throw myself upon 
your clemency. I plead as a father with liis own 


son. 


22 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


“ I indeed love you, and recognize my obligation to 
you who have given me life itself; and I value the 
honor you have brought me from a foreign prince ; 
but I must seek the approval of my own king. Do 
you suppose me capable of betraying the trust my 
king has placed in me ? What is my life worth unless 
I can be trusted ? France depends upon me to hold 
this fort.” So replied the son with no small indig- 
nation and emphasis. 

“ Did you ever know a French king to be grate- 
ful ? ” asked the father. “ My word for it, he will 
have you in the Bastile to please some favorite, 
before you are done with him.” 

“ It will never be my fault, if he forgets me,” 
responded the King’s Lieutenant. ‘‘But it will be 
my fault if I do not do what I know to be right. 
My conscience is in it.” 

Approaching now the shade where Constance was 
sitting with her mother-in-law, Charles said to his 
father, 

“ If you have no other proposals to make, you may 
as well send away your ships of war, and take your 
charming bride and settle down with me to make 
money out of the Indian fur-trade, and keep along 
with the cod-fishing we are in with Biencourt. 
Perhaps, hovrever,” he added, — turning about to 
renew the pacing up and the pacing down, and 
changing his tone from that of a warrior to that of 
an accomplished diplomat, — “if I had married a 
Franco- Anglican wife, I might talk as you do. But 


WREATHS OF SMOKE, 


23 


Constance of La Eochelle, the daughter of Bernon, 
knows nothing of the independent spirit you brought 
from the Alpine crags looking into Italy; and she is 
French to her heart’s core.” 

“ Ha, ha,” continued Charles, “ I see by the twinkle 
in your eyes, that you already laugh at me for having 
married a wife who is more of a man than I am. 
But I assure you, upon my honor, that I married her 
for soldierly and statesman-like qualities. And she has 
made me swear by a great oath that I will set up the 
throne of France upon the banks of the Penobscot, and 
the Saint John, and the roaring tides of Fundy.” 

And did you swear, my son ? I am duly proud of 
you, for being of a piece with your father. I see that 
you on your part intend to earn the approval of your 
king ; and have me on my part hold our titles and 
our land grant. Is not this what you really mean, 
down at the bottom of your eyes ? ” 

Charles and his father looked calmly into each 
other’s eyes ; as if they took delight in contemplat- 
ing each his own image reflected in the eyes of the 
other. 

It is noteworthy that they shook hands upon it ; 
and turning, walked towards the fort. 

“You were speaking of your wife,” said the baronet. 
“ Does she not fear the power of the Jesuits ? ” 

“ Yes ; she thinks they will, for the present, control 
the Saint Lawrence. But in this part of Acadia, 
she has, — so far as I can discern what she really 
does intend to do, — a settled purpose to establish a 


24 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Huguenot colony upon these eastern shores of New 
France ; and if she does, she will make these strag- 
gling outskirts of the world the match of old France 
for the love of country, able to maintain her rights 
in the great struggle that must come between France 
and England for America. Of that I am satisfied.” 

“And now, sir,” added Charles la Tour, looking 
somewhat sternly at his father, “I believe that 
we understand each other. You and I are for the 
La Tours against all kings and all nations and all 
religions.” 

Upon this, the baronet pulled out of his travelling- 
pocket the land grant, representing a magnificent strip 
of country fifteen leagues inland, along the coast for 
fifty leagues from Fundy to Mirliguesche.^ 

“Yes, I think we will take this land,” said the 
Lieutenant of France. “We shall want for the La 
Tours all that we can get from both the kings. I 
think it is now settled between us, that you will be 
the friend and patron of Charles I., and keep this land 
he has given into your charge ; and that I am to be 
the friend of Louis XIII., and take all he gives me.” 

“ Allow me to embrace you, my son.” 

“This arrangement, my honored father, will of 
course involve a public separation of our interests, 
which will appear to others most painful, to say 
nothing of its being strange. We must fight to 
maintain our respective rights; but as long as we 


1 From Yarmouth to Lunenburg. 


WBEATHS OF SMOKE. 25 

have come to this private understanding, the world 
may wonder.” 

At this point, they had come so near the place 
where their wives were conversing, that they again 
turned about. Ascending a slight elevation, Charles 
la Tour threw away his half-burned tobacco, and 
stood firmly upon both legs, looking every inch like 
the representative of a king, and pointed to the 
southwest over the Penobscot Bay: — 

“ The Saxons are founding cities and planting an 
empire; and those who are descended from Eoman 
soldiers and ancient Gauls will ‘begin from this day 
forward relatively to lose ground in the world, and do 
less for advancing civilization, unless they seize on this 
new continent and hold it vigorously with both hands. 
At least, this is what my wife says. Under the pre- 
tence of fur- trading, and marrying me, and the con- 
verting — as she calls it — of the Indians, she expects 
to take the stifled Huguenots out of France, and bring 
them hitherward, where they can breathe the air of 
freedom, and worship God in the wilderness, and 
plant the industries and civilization of the Latin race 
upon a new continent.” 

“ That would please the spirits of the dead patriots 
of La Eochelle,” answered the father. “The Due de 
Eohan and his compatriots said, that France was fast 
losing its grip upon the world by driving out of her 
borders the best blood of the nation. He desired 
to keep it in the country, by erecting a Huguenot 
republic. Failing in that, nothing could be better 


26 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


than to ship the Huguenots out of France in bulk, 
and build up a New France in America.” 

“ I have been so long out of France,” replied the 
younger La Tour, “ and I have had so little news in 
your absence, that I am glad to learn your views. 
Constance represents that no small part of the wealth, 
the business capacity, the intellectual force of France, 
have turned toward Calvinism ; and that the Eoman 
Church, led by the Jesuits, proposes to destroy the 
very sinews of the nation itself, and leave a mere 
flabby France, loyal to Eome. She is all on fire to 
bring these Protestefnts to America. It would make 
your blood boil, father, to hear Constance talk about 
it. Pray, do not speak of England and English forts 
and English baronetcies and English land-grants. 
We will keep the land, to be sure. There are no 
English here to object. There is nobody in the whole 
country. We can do what we please. We will send 
off your ships of war, and build up a New France.” 

‘‘Ah, I see,” replied the baronet. “You have fully 
submitted yourself to your wife ; although you have 
not been married a month.” 

“ I am proud of my wife,” said the son, taking his 
father by the button. “When her brother died, a 
year ago, I took her into partnership at once, and my 
business almost doubled. , My self-gratulation is com- 
plete now that I have married her. She will make 
an admirable Queen of our New France, when we 
fill it with Huguenots, and set up for ourselves in 
America.” 


WREATHS OF SMOKE. 


27 


“ Suppose, however,” retorted his father, '' that we 
compromise the situation, and bring in Scotch settlers 
as well as French. The chances are, that, so long as 
France and England are liable to have half-a-dozen 
wars within the next century, Acadia will be seized, 
whenever hostilities break out, by the King who does 
not happen to own it at the time. The area is large, 
and the population will be small for a hundred years. 
Then when the kings settle their quarrel, Acadia will 
be played like a card, this way or that, as will best 
suit the game. Under such conditions, it will be 
handy for us, the La Tours, the actual settlers of the 
country, the only rightful kings or feudal lords of 
Acadia, to have both Scotch and French; and we 
ourselves can be Scotch, English, French, to satisfy 
the circumstances, — only we will be La Tours, and 
Acadians, under all governments, and keep our rights 
by the nimbleness of our wits.” 

“ A wise father, truly,” remarked Charles. “ If 
you represent Charles I. and Sir William Alexander, 
I will represent Louis the Just; and we will both 
look sharply to our own interests.” 

So was made the celebrated La Tour, French, 
Scotch, English, Catholic, Protestant, Acadian treaty. 

Having paced up, and paced down, and trodden 
the June grass, and ground it under their heels, and 
fingered the fresh tips of hackmatack boughs, and 
looked out upon the sunny waters, to their heart’s 
content, they now returned to the society of their 
gossips, — Constance and Henrietta. 


28 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


IV. 

THEIR GOSSIPS. 


/^LAUDE LA TOUR’S London wife was the 
daughter of a native of Languedoc, one of the 
inferior order of French nobles, whose titles came to 
them through the royal grant to municipal office, on 
account of some old-time service to the king. Her 
father and his bride had escaped to England upon the 
occasion of the Toulousian League riot in January 
1589. Henrietta was little older than Constance; 
and, at this obscure fort in the wilderness, they struck 
up at once a fine friendship. 

Constance found that any Gallican sympathies 
which Henrietta might have had by inheritance, had 
so suffered from the wrongs rehearsed by French 
refugees in London, that she was glad to carry an 
English heart under her French features. The two 
wives, however, established a basis of confidence, 
when they discussed the La Tours. 

Claude la Tour,” said the late maid of honor, 
came to London a prisoner.^ My father and Pierre 


1 The prisoner of Sir David Kirk, who upon his failure to take 
Quebec, cruised for the French fleet which was bringing supplies to 
the St. Lawrence and Port Royal, capturing eighteen ships, and one 


THEIR GOSSIPS. 


29 


Gaudet knew about his family in La Tour in Pied- 
mont. My father, when a child, was once a night’s 
guest at his mother’s house in La Tour.” 

“ It must have been a wild place, from my hus- 
band’s account of it,” said Constance. “ His grand- 
mother’s home was in the Val Angrogna. It was all 
overhung by jagged and majestic mountains.” 

“ Indeed,” replied Henrietta, “ I never heard my 
husband allude to the sublimity. He has however 
often spoken of the beauty of his child home. I 
have dreamed of it as I would of fairy-land, — with 
vineyards and gardens upon the river-side, fruit-trees 
and groves of pine, pastures tinkliug with sweet 
bells, musical cascades, and a world of wild flowers 
humming with bees.” 

"‘How strange this is,” said Constance, “I never 
heard of all that. Probably Charles does not admire 
beauty, although he professes to go into ecstasies, if 
I give him a flower ; I think he does not care for 
anything but the fleur de lis of my country.” Say- 
ing this she looked closely in Henrietta’s face to see 


hundred and thirty-five pieces of ordnance, and an immense store 
of ammunition. La Tour the senior, with his son's commission 
as the Acadian Lieutenant of France in his pocket, appears to have 
made the most of his voyage to England in exercising his blandish- 
ments upon the tough old Scotchman, his captor, who subsequently 
introduced him to Sir William Alexander, as just the man suited 
to his service. La Tour’s long residence in Acadia, and his mani- 
fest ability made him most useful to Sir William. His acquaint- 
ance with the Scotch knight is alluded to in Hanney’s Acadia^ 
p. 117. 


30 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


whether there was the slightest tinge of French blood 
in it. “ I have, however, often heard him speak of 
the way in which the Vaudois maintained themselves 
for a hundred years in those mountain heights, falling 
like the avalanche upon hosts of enemies beneath 
them.” 

“ It must be,” replied Henrietta, “ that Sir Claude 
la Tour does not propose to frighten me by the 
sounds of war, notwithstanding the array of guns we 
carry ; for he never once lisped a word relating to the 
fierce crags of Mount Vandalin, save that they looked 
out upon the rich plains, the corn lands, the mead- 
ows, and vineyards of Piedmont.” 

“ And did he never tell you,” asked Constance, “ of 
the towering walls of Castelluzzo, where his grand- 
mother was hidden in a cave, let down to it by a 
rope ladder on the face of the precipice ? It makes 
my heart hot when I think how near we are to the 
blood-red Alps. Did your husband never tell you 
that his mother’s jewelled fingers were cut off by 
Spanish swords one Sunday morning, when La Tour 
was plundered in the name of the pope ? ” 

“ No,” answered Henrietta fingering her rings, “ but 
I got it out of him that his father was a sort of^ 
Protestant highway-robber, — if that is anything to • 
be proud of.” 

‘‘Outlaws, I think they called themselves,” said 
Constance. “They started out, I have heard, after 
their fracas with that braggadocio priest Ubertin 
Braida; and for years they kept the Vaudois val- 


THEIR GOSSIPS. 


31 


leys from going to sleep under the tyranny of the 
times.” 

“ But, why,” asked Henrietta, “ shall we bring to 
this new world all these ancestral woes ? You can 
hardly tell my sense of freedom in breathing the air 
of America. It is much as if I had entered the 
borders of Paradise. And I should think so, were it 
not for these wicked-looking guns, and those Tarratine 
redskins.” 

‘‘ These savages and hostile guns must help decide 
who owns America,” replied Constance, " before we 
can build a paradise upon our beautiful, rivers. 

“ You would little believe it to be Paradise, if the 
Jesuit fathers should gain here the mastership, as 
they did in Savoy, when they seized your hus- 
band’s playmate Neveau ; took him from his father’s 
house to their Turin convent, then shipped him to 
the Indies, from which never returned even his echo. 

“ I should weary you, indeed I should, were I to 
tell you how dear these guns are to me. We pro- 
pose to have a country. 

“ I sometimes believe,” she added, looking half 
timidly into the sparkling eyes of Henrietta, “ that I 
am engaged in founding a nation. Aside from a 
handful of your countrymen in Virginia, and the 
small settlements in Massachusetts Bay, and the 
Papists who claim that noblest of all rivers the 
St. Lawrence, there is no America. And if I can 
prepare the way for a Huguenot republic, Acadia 
will have an honorable future.” 


32 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


“The Due de Eohan,” observed Henrietta, tried 
that in France, did he not ? ” 

“ France was no place for it,” answered Constance, 
her lips suddenly losing color. “ It would have 
been wiser to have taken the Protestant population 
bodily out of France, and brought them here. At 
this distance, we could have defied the world in 
arms.” These closing words were uttered in a voice 
strangely agitated; and with eyelids closing over 
their tears. 

“ Do you know,” asked Henrietta, without noticing 
her companion’s face, “ that Sir Claude la Tour is 
now engaged in this very work of planting a Protes- 
tant people here ? ” 

“ Pardon my interruption,” answered Constance 
with an effort. “You had begun to tell me of Sir 
. William, when we made our conversational trip to 
the Alps.” 

“ When Claude la Tour was released from prison 
by my father’s interest at court ; and when His 
Majesty and Sir William Alexander who had the 
royal patent of Acadia, knew the La Tour connection 
with the new world, and their respectable rank in 
France, they made advances to him at once to plant 
Scotch colonists, and to seize upon the country — 
with your husband’s consent,” — said Henrietta, 
speaking rapidly, with sharp eyes fixed on Constance. 

“ My husband will never consent,” said Constance 
firmly, in a low musical tone. 

“ That depends,” replied the late lady of honor to 


THEIR GOSSIPS. 


33 


the English queen. “ Did not our English naviga- 
tors discover Acadia ? In years of peace, of course 
we could not eitforce our claims and take our country 
from your French settlers. But when Charles I. 
assumed the defence of La Eochelle, the way opened 
to seize upon Jlew France ; and the King employed 
my husband for this purpose.” 

Henrietta hardly noticed the effect of her words. 
Constance, who had been ready to sink with anguish, 
now seemed likely to faint. She rallied a moment 
in the lull of conversation ; and her eyes were fixed. 
She saw, far away over the tossing leagues of sea, no 
old-time lover, but her father’s desolate house. Her 
father had been slain early in the siege. Her mother, 
and the entire house, save her youngest brother, a 
mere child, had perished of that terrible famine 
which heaped up the dead upon the walks and in 
the passage-ways until twenty-five thousand out of a 
population of thirty thousand had perished. She 
saw those massive, impregnable walls, which had 
made her native city the pride of the Protestant 
world, crumble under the edict of that very king 
who had now sent a commission to her husband. 

But, for all this, her heart faltered not ; she was 
loyal to France, that ideal France which is dearer 
than life to every true child of the nation. She be- 
lieved that there might, even yet, be gathered a peo- 
ple, persecuted at home, who should build in the 
eastern portions of America a French State with 
more freedom if less sunshine. 


34 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Henrietta had ceased to speak. She had placed 
her hand softly within the palm of Constance. Her 
full warm English blood imparted ^new life. Her 
English eyes looked fully into the lustrous eyes 
which the ancestors of Constance had brought to her 
out of Italy. 

Henrietta knew too well what visions her com- 
panion was conjuring up across the waste of waters. 
— “ Constance, my dear one, the world is new, not 
old. It is ours to win the battles of the future. 
We cannot blanch our cheeks with tears for the 
world’s wrongs, — or even mourn unduly for our 
own dead. — Look at ydur husband, your possibilities 
of life. How manly he appears, pacing up and 
down with his father.” 

Taking both hands of Constance within her own 
magnetic palms, she added, — “Did I not begin to 
tell you, my love, about my acquaintance with 
Claude la Tour; how he sought me, and pestered me 
out of my life to marry him ? Of course, I did not 
want to; and I would not. But my queen set in, 
and my mother set in, and I yielded. I sometimes 
think that queens and Frenchwomen have queer 
notions, — as if marriage were to be at the call of 
convenience, not love.” 

Constance drew a long sigh, the first since the bit- 
ter day in which came the crushing news of the fall 
of La Eochelle and her father’s house, — the very 
day her brother died at Port Eoyal, — the very day 
she first met Charles La Tour, when he was so 


THEIR GOSSIPS, 


35 


thoughtful and kind to her at the bedside of the dy- 
ing and the new grave in the wilderness. It was 
also the last sigh. During all the years next follow- 
ing she kept her respiration in close control, — as if 
the iron in the blood of her family stock during 
some ages had finally asserted itself ; indeed she kept 
it, and did not sigh upon that fatal and darkening 
day so s6on following, when her childhood lover ap- 
peared riding upon the morning seas toward sunrise. 

“I could not help loving Charles la Tour,” said 
Constance ; “ and it did not seem to me a marriage 
of convenience.” 

Then, — so long was it since she had seen the face 
of an intelligent and sympathizing woman in her 
desolate wilderness life, cut off as she was forever 
from any old home confidants over sea, — she con- 
tinued, as if she would tell all that she had in her 
heart, and be as frank with another as with herself : 

“ I should I am sure have loved differently upon 
the coast of France, if another Charles, — my Charles 
the First,” she said with a grim attempt to smile 
under her tears, “ had not been already wedded soul 
and body to the Jesuits who educated him after the 
death of his parents. He loved me devotedly, but 
he hated my religion. He was taught to do it. He 
preferred the Jesuits to me. I should have given 
him my whole heart at once, if he had returned my 
gift ; but the Jesuits had his heart in safe keeping. 
— Perhaps he will be more manly, and break away 
from them sometime.” 


36 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


At this point Constance would have sighed, but 
she had made up her mind never to express herself 
again by that symbol. As it was, she stopped short, 
and fixed her eyes upon the manly beauty of Charles 
la Tour, as he paced up and down between the hack- 
matacks and the water. 

“ When Charles la Tour asked me to become his 
wife, he snatched me from the depths of despair, and 
gave me something to live for. My best child-friend 
had developed in his opening manhood into a con- 
firmed Jesuit, threatening to take priestly orders if I 
should not marry him. My city, oh my native city, 
my home, had perished of starvation under a cruel 
king, who could never batter down her strong walls. 
My father’s house had tumbled into the grave, except 
my baby brother; and I fear that the Jesuits may 
get control of him as they did of Charles de Menou, 
whose mother was the daughter of a Huguenot house 
of our oldest and best and most honored. And then 
my brother who came from home with me to this 
new country, died so suddenly, so strangely. It all 
came at once. The world fell in ruin over my head. 

“Charles la Tour then appeared, with so miich 
that was noble in his heart and life, in his practical 
handling of this world’s business. He was devout. 
The prayers he learned, when he was a child at the 
school of Pra du Tour, I heard him repeat in tremu- 
lous tones, as we kneeled over my brother’s grave. 
I could not help becoming his wife. T believe that 
he loves me with all the capacity he has for loving. 


THEIR GOSSIPS. 


37 


His heart is, however, principally in his great ambi- 
tions for pelf and power; his heart throbs for me, 
whenever it is at leisure. 

“ I sometimes think,” she added with sunlight in 
her eyes, “ that he is more devoted to beaver-traps 
and fish-flakes than to me ; and then, too, he dotes 
on his commission which your husband, the baronet, 
has -just brought to him.” 

At this point, the approach of the sauntering son 
and father put an end to their gossip. 

It w^as noteworthy that Charles did not take his 
father into the fort at breakfast or after. 


38 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


V. 


A PATERNAL AND FILIAL FIGHT. 

HEN it came nightfall, the light upon the 



western sea was dimmed somewhat, as 


Charles la Tour reclined upon the shelving rocks 
with Constance. It would be needful for him in fly- 
ing his flag at daybreak to name his choice between 
two kings ; but he and his father had no occasion to 
deceive each other, — they understood perfectly what 
part they were to play. Charles had, moreover, to 
prepare the mind of Constance for some modification 
of her views relating to the Scotch. 

“ How did you like your mother-in-law, Constance ? ” 

“Well enough for an English woman. She no 
longer loves the lilies of France. She is very good 
socially, and in a kind sisterly way ; but how can I 
bear the sight of her, when the French blood in 
her hand is treacherous, and she would change our 


flag? 


“ But 'do you not think well of a Scotch colony ? 
Heretofore the Scotch and French have sought 
alliance with each other against England.” 

“Charles la Tour, or Lieutenant General rather, 
the good representative of a bad king, I believe down 


A PATFBNAL AND FILIAL FIGHT. 


39 


in my heart — I wish I did not — that the British 
Islands will control America; hut it shall not be 
by my consent, as to Acadia. They will swarm and 
cover the continent. They are a migrating, people. 
Let them go south to New England. If we bring in 
the people, we bring in the king ; and I am not ready 
to abandon New France for New Scotland.” 

“ But what are we to do,” asked the husband, " if 
the French wish to stay at home ? To-day, the only 
ones who wish to emigrate are those whose lives are 
made a terror by persecution.” 

It was a strange sight which Constance called up 
from over the sea, as she replied, “Would that I 
could call back from the realms of the dead the 
twenty-five thousand martyrs of La Eochelle. With 
them we could have built up a French Protestant 
power, which would have used the magnificent har- 
bors of this coast, and have turned the falls of our 
rivers into great manufacturing towns. My poor 
country is given over to madness. She is taking 
the intelligent, the liberty-loving, the industrious, 
the thrifty, the enterprising among her people, and 
scattering them to the four winds of heaven. I would 
give my life — I will give my life if need be — to the 
gathering here of a handful, who will make Acadia 
the seed-plot of a thousand generations, where the 
best blood of France may show what it can do in 
redeeming the world.” 

“But our Frenchman John Calvin,” replied Charles, 
“has already inoculated the Scotch, through John 


40 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Knox, not only with the love of liberty, but with 
a type of moral character new even to Great 
Britain. They certainly w^ould make good homes in 
Acadia.” 

“I am' not objecting to them as good people,” 
answered Constance, “but I object to their king. 
The oats and the bagpipes I could put up with, but 
Charles Stuart, never. I am Trench in every fibre. 
We could conquer and hold no small part of the 
world, in any cause having a religious basis, if our 
Huguenot warriors only had a place upon which to 
stand, sacred to Protestant liberty.” 

“I can never cease to be glad to hear you talk 
about a French-Pro testant Eepublic in New France,” 
responded Charles. “ But the present point is this, 
that my father has an immense land-grant for himself 
and for me personally; and for you too, for your 
emigration scheme, where your settlers can be safe 
under the La Tours, whoever is king. It must have 
occurred to you, that since Acadia is half as large as 
Old France, and since there are absolutely no French 
settlers here, except our own family and our retain- 
ers, that it will be difficult to hold the entire area: so 
that Acadia is liable to change hands, back and forth 
a good many times, whenever a few pieces of ord- 
nance float, as now, toward the feeble forts of this 
wilderness.” 

“ On this account we will fight for what we have.” 
replied Constance. “You do not mean to hoist the 
red flag of England at daybreak ? How can you do 


A PATERNAL AND FILIAL FIGHT. 


41 


it with the King’s commission in your hand ? Is 
your father still to be recognized as your father, if he 
is a traitor to his king ? He is a Piedmontese ; let 
him shift kings, if that suits his fancy. But were I 
to hoist the meteor flag, the red fire of England, more 
than thirty generations of my ancestors would arise 
from their graves and fight for the flowers of the 
lily of France.” 

The white flag of France was flying at the break 
of day. It was first seen by the lookout upon the 
men-of-war. 

“ All that remains for us is to take the fort in a 
fair fight, if we can,” the baronet remarked to the 
commander of the expedition. Lieutenant General 
La Tour pleads a prior engagement with Louis XIIL, 
which hinders him from ratifying the agreements, 
which in his absence I made with King Charles and 
Sir William Alexander in his behalf If we cannot 
take the fort, we must make a treaty with him to 
protect our colonists, and to cooperate with Sir Wil- 
liam in settling up the country with Scotch, which the 
Lieutenant General is disposed to do.” 

If the Acadian lobsters, boiled into red coats for 
the Britons’ breakfast, were three or even four feet 
long. La Honton should be credited with the report. 

When, after disposing of the lobsters, the com- 
mander sought to disembark a body of his soldiers, 
the ships were struck by a heavy fire from the fort ; 
to which the British oak made answer by a lively 
cannonade, — the first shot cutting away the Pen- 


42 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


tagoiiet flag-staff with its folds of silkd This was 
followed by hearty English cheers, which made the 
bay and forest ring with echoes. 

They were, however, silent when the return shot ^ 
took away the rudder-post of the St. George.” This 
piece of ordnance had been manned by Constance, 
who had spent her life in a military city, under the 
elbows of gunners. By her father’s position she was 
permitted to learn the artillery practice ; to which he 
had been trained in his youth. In bearing her part 
in sighting guns upon the Penobscot, she recalled the 
spirit of her mother, who in the first great siege of 
La Eochelle was among the foremost with her ladle, 
when the women and children mounted the walls 
and poured boiling pitch upon their assailants. 

One more shot, perilously near to cutting the main 
boom, led the baronet to beseech his commander to 
run out of range. 

An attempt was made to land soldiers at midnight 
upon the western side of Majabiguydiice, which was 
met with so fierce an onslaught, that they retired in 
some confusion. 

The Saxon soldiery had none too much faith in 
their French baronet, who had promised the surrender 
of his son’s fort without bloodshed. The number of 
Huguenot sailors and soldiers on board prevented, 
however, the officers from making any hostile demon- 
stration. But it was determined to test his fealty, 

1 The flag was one which Constance had wrought with her own 
fingers against the day of peril. 


A PATFRNAL AND FILIAL FIGHT. 43 


and avail themselves of Claude la Tour’s knowledge 
of localities (he having resided at the fort in former 
years) to make regular approaches from the hill on 
the north, unless the inner palisades could be carried 
by surprise upon the second night. 

The Pentagoiiet garrison had now been reinforced 
during thirty-six hours by Indian trappers and 
friendly warriors, to whom Constance had sent out 
runners in every direction, before the return of her 
liusband, upon the morning she first saw the foreign 
flag. The Biguyduce Eiver was alive with canoes 
stealing along in the evening shadows ; and the tall 
Tarratines from the northern waters were pouring 
down upon the swift current and the outgoing tide. 

The surprise-party in the night was therefore 
sadly surprised. The baronet hastily returned to the 
“ Lionheart,” still wearing his scalp ; in which he was 
more favored than some of his shipmates. 

This cloud of red Indians decided the attacking 
party to hold a war-council. It was determined to 
return to England.^ 

It was whispered among the officers, that the 
baronet would die on the block if he should return 
to England; and there were some who would have 
been glad to see him dangling from a yard-arm in 
sight of the fort. 

Claude la Tour was, however, able to persuade the 
commander. Sir Eichard Kent, that he had acted in 

1 A Geographical History of Nova Scotia. London : 1749, 
pp. 55-61. 


44 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


good faith, and that by remaining in the country he 
would he able to render important service to Sir 
William Alexander, and to the King; that his son 
would co-operate with England, as to the settlement 
of colonists, although he deemed it prudent for the 
present not to arouse the antagonism of France. 
More would be gained for England with a La Tour in 
the fort, than by precipitating upon Acadia the forces 
of Louis. 

Kent had not been favorably impressed with what 
he had seen of the coast ; and stated that he would 
recommend Alexander to give the La Tours the whole 
of it, if they were willing to take it. 

The chagrin of the lonely baronet, — who knew not 
when there would be another, who at that time 
comprised the entire body of landed aristocracy of 
Nova Scotia, — was very great when he reflected upon 
the disappointment of Henrietta, who was thunder- 
struck at the turn which affairs had taken. Delicately 
alluding to his changed condition, he intimated that 
she might prefer to return to England. 

“ Do you suppose,” she answered, that I assumed 
the marriage vows to forsake you ? Wherever you 
go, I will go. I will share every turn of fortune. 
However wretched the condition, it will be my great- 
est felicity to soften the rigors of your fate, and to 
alleviate your sorrows.” 

With two men servants and two maid servants, the 
baronet and Henrietta were set ashore. 


THE WASTES OF TEE WORLD. 


45 


VI 

THE WASTES OF THE WORLD. 

TF England had claimed the country first explored 
by Livingstone, and had appropriated it ; or if 
the United States, or more properly an enterprising 
I^’ew York newspaper, had claimed that portion of 
the interior of Africa upon great lakes and rivers 
which Stanley discovered, as a mere extension of 
the public domain, or as a private realm in which 
to sell papers, — it would have been precisely what 
was deemed the proper thing by the European kings, 
— who sat as comfortably as they could upon sword- 
points or cushions of silk, surrounded by women of 
questionable reputation or by fierce soldiers, with 
assassins lurking in the background, — wheu the 
world’s enterprising merchants, sailors, and country 
gentlemen went out and explored regions unknown, 
and dedicated them to their most Christian kings. 
The kings, upon reflection, had no doubt that they 
owned the domains westward by perhaps a better 
title than many things of which they had possessed 
themselves eastward. 

If the navigator wanted, therefore, a little money 
to develop and improve his new land, he was 


46 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


allowed by that crowned Christian, under whose 
shadow he happened to have been born, to get his 
cash as best he could in the way business men ordi- 
narily do, — with the additional security of certain 
dark and mysterious rights in land grants, vast, un- 
certain, perhaps limitless as the unknown continent, 
doled out by royal hands to those who dare risk 
money and person in a new world risen out of the 
sea. 

This holding out of sceptres over the Cimmerian 
darkness of lands less known to Europe than the 
nether world, was one form of amusement for kings, 
some of whom were mere children. James, Charles, 
Henry, Louis, Philip all claimed and all gave away 
the 'Same country ; and the poor grantees had to fight 
it out on the new soil as best they could, with occa- 
sional help from their liege lords. 

Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that 
the actual settlers, who once got a grip upon their 
lands, defied the world. The La Tours, therefore, 
claimed it as their right to hang on to what they had 
got; taking with both hands all that Louis and 
Charles would give them in the -way of titles, and 
submitting from time to time as best they could to 
the chagrins of the hour and the changing whims of 
the courts of Europe. 

When Charles la Tour had once discharged his 
obligation to his revered father, by giving him much 
high-sounding advice upon the duty of a patriotic re- 
gard to that puppet, which was made to sit here or 


THE WASTES OF THE WORLD, 


47 


to stand there by the Bishop of Luqoii in his new 
scarlet robe ; and had awakened echoes of applause 
in Versailles, and made himself respected at Hampton 
Court ; and had received a congratulatory letter from 
Louis, who would entertain a kingly remembrance of 
what the backwoodsman had done for him ; and had 
in hand his commission and land grants from France, 
and a baronetcy not formally accepted and a land 
grant which he would take from England, — he was 
well fitted to make a treaty of peace with his own 
father, and set a good example to all Blue Noses for- 
ever as being a little more cute than any Yankee who 
had yet been raised upon the New England coast. 

If Charles la Tour’s wits had not been sharpened 
by his experiences in a new world it was not the 
fault of his fate. 

“ Of course the La Tours own this country,” said 
Constance to Henrietta, as they embarked in their 
birch to pick up certain mink traps, before emigrating 
to Cape Sable. ‘‘The former king, James, shuffling 
round in his old shoes, gossiping with his old Scotch 
cronies, peering out of the thick atmosphere of 
London or the mists north of the Tweed, tried to 
discover another bank of fog for his countrymen, and 
to name it New Scotland ; now King Charles at- 
tempts to make good the Scotch grant. As for Louis 
XIIL, he would make anybody his Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral, who would fortify and fight in his name upon 
any part of the globe to which he had no claim, and 
he would call it New France. For all that, whatever 


48 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


king claims it, Acadia belongs to the La Tours. 
Louis was only eight years old when my husband 
came to Acadia ; and James was upon his throne, 
trying to substitute oatmeal porridge for English beef, 
when your husband first appeared in these parts ; 
and Sir William Alexander did not get a patent from 
James until the La Tours had discovered and im- 
proved large regions in their own right. What does 
Louis know about the Madawaska, or Charles about 
the Tobique ? They slice off land grants much as 
they would cold turkey, or cold Jesuit as they say 
in Erance.” ^ 

" I am sure,” replied Henrietta, “ that if 1 had 
starved in Acadia as your husband did that winter 
with Biencourt waiting for supplies from France, I 
should lay claim to the country for a recompense. 
Eat and oiled and curled kings never wintered on 
acorns and hazel-nuts, buds, roots, lichens, and boiled 
boots.. He told me that he had breakfasted in Janu- 
ary upon broth made from the eel skins with which 
he had patched his trousers in October ; and dined 
the next day upon soup made from the tops of his 
elk-hide boots.” 

“ I suppose,” answered Constance, “ it was a whiff 
of that broth which excited the envy of the lean and 
scrawny Scotch noblemen. They have little fun in 
their north country, and I have no doubt they look 
upon it as a huge joke to beg land from a king, who 

1 It "being believed that the Jesuits introduced this bird to 
Europe. 


THE WASTES OF THE WORLD. 


49 


does not own it ; and then give away what does not 
belong to them to men, like your husband and mine, 
who had been already the actual owners of it for 
some twenty years. I expect now, at almost any 
time there will come, riding upon the morning sea, 
some other claimant of this country. He may be 
English, he may be Scotch^ he may be from Virginia, 
from Plymouth, from Massachusetts Bay, from Pem- 
aquid, or he may be from France ; he may be ah 
Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Separatist, a Papist, 
or a Jesuit. It is on this account that we propose 
to fortify for the La Tours. America is booty for 
adventurers, and we expect to be attacked by almost 
everybody, — although Charles to be sure did not 
expect to exchange shots with his own father. I 
presume that my old lover, the La Eochelle Jesuit, 
will turn up next.” 

“ That would be no more strange,” replied Henri- 
etta, than what has already taken place, when you 
stood sighting a gun, with your mother-in-law on the 
other side, trembling lest you should kill her out- 
right.” 

“ I should think, indeed, that Charles de Menou 
would come to America,” said Constance. “ The 
Jesuits wish to convert the Indian world ; and the 
woods are full of savage souls.” 

“ Any young Frenchman,” replied Henrietta, 
“ would, I should suppose, be glad to get into a coun- 
try where he is free to think and act without losing 
his head. I do not wonder that Champlain loves 
4 


50 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


the wilderness ; I only wonder at his angelic wife, 
whom the Indians at Quebec wanted to worship, 
who has left her husband to wander in the woods at 
his own sweet will, and has gone back to France to 
enter a convent, there to fulfil her predestined saintly 
career with the holy women of her native country. 
I suppose that she would rather be the bride of the 
Churc^h than of a pioneer.” 

“ For myself,” responded Constance, “ my heart is 
in Acadia; and I love every Indian, every stump, 
every bear, and every beaver in it. I only wish that 
I had a tithe of the Huguenots of France, — and I 
think I could put up with a very few grumbling 
Scots, — and we would soon lay the foundations of a 
Protestant nation. Our Acadian harbors are better 
than the English have, to' the south of us ; we have 
better rivers ; and our soil is as good as theirs, if not 
better. You and I ought to be crusaders, and stir 
up the old nations to come and settle these wastes of 
the world.” 

When the mink traps and all other traps, by the 
marvellous executive force of Simon Imbert, — 
Charles la Tour’s right hand man, — had been removed 
to Cape Sable, the new “Fort Louis” frowned among 
the rocks, upon a headland which gave sight of all 
shipping bound for Fundy, the Penobscot, or the 
Massachusetts Bay. And the King’s Lieutenant 
kept a swift shallop constantly provisioned and 
munitioned, ready for a long chase or a sudden 
expedition. 


THE WASTES OF THE WORLD. 


51 


Cape Sable itself is an island, a barren mass of 
rocks. Behind it, the coast is indented. Upon the 
finger of land reaching out from the main on the 
east, stood the fort ; a stronghold massive and im- 
movable by the artillery of that age, — as Cape Sable 
itself amid the thundering surges, pounding against 
it throughout all generations. East of Eort Louis the 
Atlantic had so gashed the coast as to make a little 
harbor; the mouth of which was guarded against 
strangers by a baker’s dozen of rocky islets. Baccaro 
Point makes into the ocean upon the east of this 
little port, which is still called Port Latour, — a 
little fishing hamlet occupying the ground where 
stood the house of Constance, and the trading-post, 
the little chapel, and the Indian school-building in 
which Henrietta taught the Souriquois children for 
some months. 

The heaviest seas were broken upon the reefs 
fronting Port Latour. Ugly ledges stood away from 
the cape, a full mile into the sea. The waters were 
full of danger, save to those who went in and out 
every day, with full knowledge where they could sail 
in safety. 

It was easy to find a good sand-bank for curing 
fish ; and to discover an abundance of game upon the 
low coasts, and the wooded islands. The stony soil 
supported a thick underbrush ; and the bushes were 
alive with rabbits. Barrens made by old forest-fires, 
and bogs which had raised rank grasses for the deer 
and the moose of unnumbered centuries, and exten- 


52 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


sive marshes, offered to the La Tours easy experi- 
ments in agriculture ; and they cut no small amount 
of grass, here and there, in the area of modern Bar- 
rington and Argyle. A patch of some ten or fifteen 
acres was often turned hy the plough. 

A house was built for La Tour the senior, whose 
happy temperament satisfied him with small comfort 
if he could not have more. 

Notwithstanding the gallant defence upon the Pe- 
nobscot, Port Eoyal had been taken by Sir William 
Alexander ; hut Acadia and Quebec were immediately 
ceded to France again, so that the La Tours were 
first under one king then another, scarcely knowing 
or caring who claimed to rule over them. First one 
king was lost, then another ; but the La Tours were 
always to he found, — as a Micmac told Constance 
in the forest : " Wigwam lost ; Indian here.” 

Foreseeing the impending struggle for America, in 
the game of kings, the La Tours made sure of their 
fortifications : La Tour the senior being set to work 
upon a fort at St. John, as soon as Cape Sable was 
ready for war. 


THE SOURIQUOIS. 


53 


VIL 

THE SOURIQUOIS. 

their way to the St. John, the baronet and the 
lady Henrietta visited picturesque Port Royal, 
its wild hills and watery expanse of surpassing beauty. 
Sir William Alexander’s Scotch colony had suffered 
much in the long winter, three sevenths of the in- 
habitants seeking narrow houses under the sod within 
the few months before Henrietta and her husband 
bore such comfort as they could to the homes of the 
living. 

The La Tours had great interest in the quadrangle 
at the settlement, and upon the river fiquille. The 
father had been driven from this spot by the Eng- 
lish, going thence to the Penobscot ; and the son still 
owned it all, by the Biencourt deed, under the Erench 
grant.^ 

The influence of the early French occupation was 
still discernible in the Indian residents of the neigh- 
boring wilds ; the aboriginal population easily catch- 

1 The memorial stone, some two feet by two and a half, inscribed 
by the founders with the Masonic square and compasses and the 
date, 1606, was discovered in 1827. 


54 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


ing the polite forms and salutations characteristic of 
their teachers^ 

A hundred or more of the Souriquois families near 
Cape Sable were formed into a mission by Constance, 
at first with Henrietta’s aid. These Indians became 
so much attached to the French, that they were 
practically so many allies for the enlargement of 
the garrison, if occasion should require.^ 

In connection with the fur trade, established in all 
the region far and near, Constance herself visited no 
small area of the Indian settlements, living for weeks 
together among the savages, seeking in some practical 
way to improve their lives within and without. 

When Constance reflected upon the ages of barbar- 
ism in her native country, pagan Gaul, and the ages 
preceding of Roman savagery, and upon the relative 
low state of Christian civilization among the Latin 
peoples in the early part of the seventeenth century, 
she did not look for great results immediately follow- 
ing any attempt she might make to Christianize her 
Souriquois neighbors. If, indeed, she could have 
made them what she would, there would have been 
less need of importing Huguenots. 

i Argal in making his savage and piratical onslaught upon the 
French at Mount Desert, which led ultimately to the destruction 
of Port Royal, discovered the neighborhood of the French by the 
politeness of the natives ; the captain discerning in this the French 
“tracks,” as one would follow wild game by footsteps in the 
forest. 

‘•J This alliance appears in La Tour’s communications to the 
French King. 


THE SOURIQUOIS. 


55 


It is still related in the Imbert family, that when 
Constance had spent some months in work among 
the Indians, she confessed to having gained new in- 
sight as to the meaning of the sacred books, in which 
it is said that the Lord is patient and long suffering, 
and slow to anger. 

The power of Constance over the wild men of the 
woods was due mainly to her adaptation to the kind 
of life she led among them. 'No warrior could fail 
to be attracted by her well balanced figure and elastic 
step in the wilderness ; and it was noticed that she 
turned not to the right hand nor the left in a day’s 
march, but kept straight forward as the Indians did, 
unmindful of any particular tangle in the tangled 
wood. 

It came to be noised abroad that to the various 
kinds of Indians of Acadia, — Abenakis, Canibas, 
Etechemins, Mahingans, Micmacs,^ Openagos, Socco- 
kis, — there was now added Constansis, a name that 
ran, wherever the warriors ran, along the Acadian 
rivers. That the Micmac remnant at Shediac should 
still mention her name, as the Guardian Angel of 
their children, is indeed a delightful testimony to the 
place won by this Huguenot woman in the hearts, 
and so in the mythology, of the pagans she served. 

A fishing station was established at what is now 
Port Eossingal. In this lone land, with Claude la 
Tour and a dozen whites at Saint John, ten Scotch 
families at Port Eoyal, Simon Imbert at Pentagoliet, 

1 Souriquois. 


56 


CONSTANCE ON ACADIA. 


and her own husband with a few trusted soldiers 
at Cape Sable, this Guardian Angel ministered to 
the Souriquois, at Eossingal, at La Heve, and, — by 
following the streams, and crossing the mountains in 
paths made by the wild beasts meandering according 
to the nature of the surface like dry rivulets, — 
moved across the land’s interior even as far as Chiq- 
necto Bay, where she found vast numbers of Indians 
near the great marshes, with well settled agricultural 
habits, and an inexhaustible and unvarying abundance 
of game at hand. Wherever she ventured amid the 
deep-green trees, tossiug like the waves of the green 
sea, clothing a continent like the boundless expanse 
of waters, it is a part of the old Indian story, — living 
now after more than two hundred years, — that the 
branches, even upon still days, waved w^elcome and 
farewell as she passed under them ; and that the for- 
ests swayed listening, when she spoke to the Indians 
about her God ; that the meadows enlarged their bor- 
ders and multiplied their flowers, when she plied her 
paddle passing through them upon smooth streams ; 
that moss-grown and decaying trees were touched 
with undying youth, wherever she kindled her camp- 
fire ; that the clanging and screaming sea-birds gath- 
ered in a silent cloud above her head, and that the 
wild waves ceased their tumbling, when her birch 
rounded the headlands in passing from one inlet to 
another to gather the children of her mission. 

These dream-like journeys, invented by wigwam 
fires during eight generations, are pleasanter by far 


THE SOURIQUOIS. 


57 


than those endured by the original missionary. It 
was prosaic enough in the tough work, so long since 
forgotten by those who have idealized the story. 

Huddle of huts, — some like inverted and coned 
wash-tubs ; others like large ,sized hen-coops twenty 
feet long, or like rough barracks of a hundred feet 
with a loft for the children of eight families and sleep- 
ing stalls upon either side below — all with a stone 
platform for fire the whole length of the centre, with 
no chimney save a hole in the roof closed in stormy 
weather, without windows, with a door at one end 
— all inclosed with a heavy stockade of oak, double 
set, fifteen feet high ; villages as often as may be 
standing between wood and water,^ devoured of gnats, 
mosquitoes, and black flies in summer, and smothered 
by smoke in winter ; villages often connected by old- 
trodden paths, deep with water or mire, bordered by 
briar and thorn, — paths over burnt lands, scorched 
under the summer’s heat or wind-swept in winter; — 
villages crowded with men of medium size, well 
formed, of strong physique, full of fire, absolutely 
without temper upon their tongues or in their facial 
muscles, but with cold-blooded barbaric cruelty in 
their hearts, — they alone matching the Iroquois in 
battle ; villages in which the squaws, with their great 
black eyes and fat unwieldy frames, were honored by 
the chiefs in contest unique before they ventured 

^ Besides the coast and rivers, there are between seven and 
eight hundred small lakes in Nova Scotia, the shores offering 
favorite sites for the Indian villages. 


58 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


upon the war path ; ^ women tough and wiry as their 
husbands, with bodies impervious to heat or cold ; 
women honored, as well they might be, for their use- 
fulness, not only in making fish nets in imitation of 
the spider-webs they saw hanging upon the shrubs 
along shore, but in stirring the damp soil of spring- 
time with crooked sticks, and putting in corn, 
squashes, pumpkins, water-melons, — and not without 
skill in tobacco culture : villages swarming with chil- 
dren, — the babes crawling without clothing into 
snow-drifts and thickets, upon the ice or in the 
water, — the feeble dying, and the strong becoming 
as agile as the beasts of prey, and as much inured 
to the changing conditions of wind and weather : ^ — 
amid such surroundings Constance led no ideal life 
of poetic dreaming ; but she turned heartily to the 
problems of the place and the hour, with a practical 
insight into just what could and could not be done 
to ameliorate the physical and spiritual condition of 
the Acadian savagery. 

Moving about among the hundreds of islands which 
gem the waters of Argal Bay, and nearly one hundred 

1 Geographical History of Nova Scotia, London, 1747 ; p. 45. 
Charlevoix, in Histoire Nouvelle France, passim, indicates that 
nominally, and in fact commonly, the dictum of the Indian women 
was considered final. 

2 Charlevoix, Nouvelle France; I. 113, 114. The accounts in 
Parkman’s Jesuits of what Indian captives endured, show that the 
she-bears and wolves of Canada were not tougher than the women ; 
proving, at least, that the American climate is not in itself unfavor- 
able to the feminine physique. 


THE SOURIQUOIS. 


59 


lakelets strung along the Tusket Eiver, Constance — 
says the Indian tradition — called for a great gather- 
ing at a bear feast. It was in the late autumn, when 
bruin was in fine condition. The frightened bears 
were clubbed out of the grape vines in the tree tops 
by creatures more courageous than they ; and were 
then driven upon the run by the nimble-footed 
savages ; so that from many quarters, the swift In- 
dians armed with mere switches might be seen driv- 
ing parcels of bears toward a village full of arrows 
and spears and sharp appetites.^ 

Into the mouths of the slain bears, and down their 
throats, smoke from an Indian pipe was blown by the 
hunters, and, with this incense offered to the spirit 
ursine, each bear was conjured to cherish no resent- 
ment for the insult done his body; then the bear 
heads, painted and adorned, were set in honored 
place, and the savages sang the praises of the king 
of Acadian beasts, while they tore in pieces and 
devoured every shred of the flesh. 

The bears left little appetite for the French pastry 
which Constance had prepared ; but the memory of 
her skill in cookery fastened itself at least in the 
mind of the leather- visaged old chief Packate, who 
inquired whether the pies of Paradise were as good 
as those made at Port Latour. “ If I ask for nothing 
but bread,” objected the grisly Outan, in learning 

* Charlevoix’s Journal of a Voyage to North America. 2 Vols. 
London, 1761. I. 182, et al. 


60 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


the Lord’s prayer, “I shall have no more moose 
or sweet-meats.” ^ 

Acute were the arguments of these wild theolo- 
gians against a written revelation. Proud at heart 
and independent, they had little apprehension of 
things spiritual. Work was a penance, gently insisted 
upon as tending toward the highest good. Simple 
industries adapted to the forest were introduced, — 
the making of tar from the pines being one. Acquisi- 
tiveness, — the saving gospel of the Book of Proverbs, 
— was taught by Constance. 

The women were inducted into the mysteries of 
bread-making, — a knowledge welcome in the woods, 
where hominy, soaked and pounded and baked in the 
ashes and eaten hot, answered for bread. The Bread 
of Life had more meaning to those who learned the 
French cooking. The flavoring of venison-broth for 
the sick gained favor for the fair missionary. 

And her heart was full for the sorrows of mother- 
hood. Poor Nimi of fantastic foot, a meriy dancing 
girl, she found bending over the gTave of her first- 
born child, sprinkling the sod with the milk from 
her breasts. “ I have buried in this grave,” said the 
mourner, the cradle and all my child’s clothing and 
everything she handled, not only to testify my love, 
but likewise to prevent my having always before my 

1 De la Hutchette was the only street in Paris which interested 
the Iroquois chieftains, — a row of pastry shops. Charlevoix, 
Journal, II. 107. 


I 


THE SOUBIQUOIS. 


61 


eyes objects which, being constantly used by her, 
incessantly renew my grief.” 

And the heart of Constance was touched with the 
sorrows of childhood. It was her devotion to the 
little ones which led to her apotheosis. She taught 
to them the Hebrew idea of guardian spirits, which 
doubtless gave form to the shape in which she was 
herself remembered when she ceased to move through 
the Acadian forests. 

She had hope for the children, and she went to 
school to them, learning all their wild wood-lore : 
about the birds, — the swallow, the thrush, the black- 
bird, the raven, the wood-pigeon, and the partridges 

— red, white, black ; and about the roots, — so need- 
ful a knowledge in the forest.^ 

With them she sought out the strawberry barrens ; 
and to them she imparted her knowledge of what to 
do with the vast stores of bluets^ they gathered, 
interesting the little ones in the culinary arts from 
La Eochelle. To make vinegar out of gooseberries, 
to cure the wild plums, to coddle the wild apples, to 
improve the quality of the native fruit-trees by cul- 
ture, to favor the pears, to select the best grape-vines, 

— formed a part of the practical instruction of the 
Guardian Angel of the Souriquois ; and the children 
in the next generation called her blessed. 

1 The root of Solomon’s Seal played no mean part in keeping the 
French from starving at Quebec ; groundnuts, varied by acorns and 
clams, were an important article of diet to the poor of Boston in 
more than one hard winter of the early settlement. 

2 Blueberries. 


62 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


To the little Sagassoa was imparted special infor- 
mation, how to protect the Indian babes from the 
torment of the unperceivable sparks of fire, — the 
hrulots ; ^ and to Pingoe was given the results of 
French reflection as to the best way to fight the 
columwitchk in June. 

The manufacture of maple sugar was first intro- 
duced into Acadia by Constance, who taught the 
method to her Indian children. 

It was much, not little, that this cultivated woman, 
— her soul fired with great enterprises for the faith 
that was in her, and for the outworking of a great 
problem for her nation, — should have placed her 
heart, throbbing beat upon beat, by the side of these 
Souriquois hearts, of warrior and widow, of mother 
and child, in the humble avocations of each day in 
their squalid homes. 

She fastened her religious instruction upon what- 
ever was worthy among a people wlio appeared, to 
themselves at least, to have no small allotment of 
this world’s happiness. 

By tears and entreaty, never by threats and blows, 
these w'omen of Acadia ruled within their own homes. 
“ Thou dishonorest me,” uttered by a tearful mother, 
failed not to win the heart and the obedience of her 
child ; and if in hasty temper the extremity of reproof 
was given — a few drops of water sprinkled upon a 
child’s face — the proud aggrieved spirit sometimes 
sought refuge in exit from life itself. The children 
1 La Honton, I. 242. 


THE SOURIQUOIS. 


63 


were taught that no one, not even their own parents, 
had the right to force them to do anything. Upon 
this stalwart, self-respecting, self-reliant character, 
there was by patience built up something more than 
the highest Indian virtue, respect for age ; and some 
there were who sought to conform their wills to Him 
who is called the Ancient of Days. 

This missionary to the Micmacs, whose name is 
W’orthy of honor by the side of May hew, Eliot, and 
the Ursulines of Canada, was cut off long before the 
prime of her years. When, just before the end came, 
she made her last visit to the inland villages, and 
cruised along the inlets of the south-shore, she found 
a little less dirt, a little less smoke, a little more to 
eat, a little less contention among the women, more 
aversion to the vices which cursed many homes, more 
intelligent views of the All-Father, and more faith in 
the living and loving God. 


64 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


VIII. 


MAKCHIONESS DE GUERCHEVILLE. 

HEN Constance was a child, she was with her 



* ’ mother the guest of the Marchioness de 
Guercheville, at the time Henry IV. made a hunting 
party an excuse to crave Madame’s hospitality. The 
chateau, standing upon the right bank of the Seine, 
about ten leagues below Paris, was brilliantly illu- 
minated for the royal lover ; the open groves upon 
the upland in the rear of the house were lighted by 
colored fires, and the beautiful gardens upon the ter- 
races were blazing with light ; the fountains and riv- 
ulets added their delicate music to that of skilled 
voices and tuneful instruments, — as the King, sur- 
prised at so cordial a reception, rode up the long 
avenue of shade trees, under the escort of hooted 
guardsmen, clothed in blood-red or deep blue richly 
embroidered with silver ; he was met at the portal by 
plumed and ribboned, ruffled and starched, and laced 
and gilded gentry, and by women of rank in robes of 
purple and cloth of gold. The king, alighting upon a 
carpet of flowers was greeted by the Marchioness, 
clad in gray velvet shot with gold, a .robe of black 
satin variegated with white, a gray hat and white 


MARCHIONESS BE GUERCHEVILLE. 65 

feather, her neck and bosom of pearl loaded with jew- 
els. Having ushered her lord and king into his apart- 
ment, the hostess repaired at once to the court yard, 
where her gay equipage was waiting, and drove two 
leagues to the gray convent of St. Agathe, which 
stood with its heavy walls among the crags upon a 
lonely hill top in a sparsely settled district, and there 
craved a lodging. 

O O 

She left word with her astonished monarch, — 
“ Where the King is, he should be sole master ; 
where I am, I desire to preserve my authority. If 
my rank is too low to become your wife, my heart is 
too high to become your mistress.” 

In after years, the King deemed her the one per- 
son in his kingdom, who should stand next his 
queen. 

In the new reign, the Marchioness jvas in high 
favor with Concini, whose conscience was kept by 
the Society of Jesus. The most influential minds in 
France were at that period under the advice of those 
followers of Loyola who were set apart as “ spiritual 
coadjutors ” with the care of souls. Under the in- 
fluence of Goncini, Madame de Guercheville selected 
Arrighi as her confessor. The Jesuit authorities 
sought out the consciences of women likely to be of 
eminent service. 

It was upon those identical days when Constance 
was traversing the heads of the rivers at the base of 
the mountain range, in search of the Souriquois chil- 
dren, that the Marchioness de Guercheville dedicated 


6 


66 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


her fortune to Jesuit missions in hTew France, and 
obtained a grant from Louis XIII. of all Xorth 
America for her grand project of Christianizing the 
denizens of the wilderness. With all the power of 
the court behind her, she personally solicited funds 
among the royal favorites, and bought for Jesuit 
missionaries a controlling interest in great mercantile 
enterprises, and made the most elaborate and syste- 
matic plans for colonizing the new world, under the 
leadership of the Society of Jesus, which had already 
borne the cross of their Saviour, and the discipline of 
their order to every part of the known world. 

It cannot be said, that Constance had a pre-judice 
against this holy order, so much as a post-judice. 
By their fruits ye shall know them. She remembered 
how her father had exerted himself against the res- 
toration of the Order in France, when they had been 
once cast out for supposed (with little reason it is 
likely,) complicity in the assassination of Henry of 
Xavarre. It was not in her blood to live at ease in 
Acadia with these men. Perhaps her judgment had 
been warped the more by the leading away from her 
childhood heart, and the heart of her bloominsf 
womanhood, Charles of La Eochelle. 

Be that as it may, she had nought to do now, but 
to gird herself to the contest with Madame de 
Guercheville for that portion of country controlled 
by La Tour. 

Constance of Acadia had a mission to perform. 
With no confessor at her side, with no rosary in 


MARCHIONESS DE QUERCHEVILLE. 67 


jewelled fingers, this practical, energetic woman 
stood to her faith, and to self-denying labors among 
the pagan people of her husband’s province. To 
build up a Protestant nation, to colonize the new 
world with such men of France as would die rather 
than submit their consciences to the pope and his 
kings, was the work which she determined to main- 
tain even at the cannon’s mouth. She would give 
her own life rather than yield to that religious Order, 
which, at a critical time in the settlement of America, 
sought to control the opening continent, when there 
were few men in it. 

Looking at it now, as it must appear to the student 
of history, her stand, when she made it, was little 
else than the attempt of a solitary woman to sweep 
back the on-rushing tides of Fundy. “Thou King of 
kings, give me Acadia, or I die,” was the inscription 
cut by Constance upon the great pa^r birch, near 
the Souriquois school-hut at La Heve ; as it was 
found after her death by Simon Imbert. 

The inscription may have been made upon the 
morning of the very day when “L’Esperance en 
Dieu” hove to, near the rocks at Cape Sable. 

This pious pinnace, this hope in God, was of a 
hundred tons ; with all the guns and swivels she 
could safely carry. If the commander hoped in God, 
he also kept his powder dry. 

The King’s governor or Lieutenant in Acadia see- 
incp the flasr of his nation at the masthead of the 
stranger, fired a salute, which was returned; and a 


68 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


boat load of those whose hope was in the Divine 
Providence and in their own powder, made toward 
Fort Louis. The handsome young commander, clad 
in garb little removed from that of the Jesuit priest- 
hood, presented his credentials as one of Mme. de 
Guercheville’s lay missionaries, who was to estab- 
lish certain priests upon the Penobscot, at such point 
as the King’s Lieutenant might deem most feasible-; 
concerning which, he desired an interview. 

Apologizing for his wife’s absence, who was at her 
La Heve mission. La Tour invited the ecclesiastics to 
his house outside the fort, and made the most of the 
hospitality he had learned from his polite father, and 
his frank open-hearted mother in Piedmont. 

He was informed in oily phrases of the great repu- 
tation he had won for himself in France, by the gal- 
lant defence he had made of Pentagotiet ; and that 
the King intended further to honor him : meantime, 
it would be greatly for his interest to render every 
aid in his power to the work of saving the pagans, 
and transforming them into the allies of France. 
The princes of royal blood had contributed largely to 
their mission ; and with his great revenue from the 
monopoly of the fur-trade upon the peninsula, and 
upon the St. John and upon the Penobscot, it had 
seemed to them probable that he would devote some 
portion at least of the Penobscot profits to establish- 
ing their mission of St. Ignatius. 

To all this. La Tour replied with so much suavity 
and apparent cordiality, that it would have made a 


MARCHIONESS DE OUERCHEVILLE. 69 


great impression upon the strangers, had they not 
themselves been perfect masters of the same art, with 
no more sincerity than that of their host. Whatever 
they thought of each other at heart, there was a regal 
feast of squirrel broth, brook trout and salmon, of 
black duck and wood-pigeons, of venison and moose 
meat, of the wild fruits of the country, of wines 
from over the sea, and of brandy flavored with blue- 
berries. 

The fine spirited leaders in the brisk and bright 
conversation at table, with great delicacy, found out 
what they could of each other, and imparted as little 
as possible. The hours flew swiftly. Always com- 
plaisant, La Tour had a face which could be read by 
no man, and by no woman, as to what he was really 
thinking about ; he appeared to give much informa- 
tion, even if irrelevant. 

He sent an open letter to Simon Imbert, bidding 
him give the missionaries and colonists the use of 
the Pentagoliet settlement ; and to aid them in their 
explorations for the inland mission of St. Ignatius, 
which was to be located at the mouth of the Ken- 
duskeag stream. He even sent La Plaque, an Indian 
spy, along with his guests for a pilot, — with secret 
instructions to Imbert. 

The Jesuit fathers could but remark among them- 
selves, as they sailed westward, what a great acqui- 
sition to the Order, La Tour would prove, if he could 
be persuaded, — as he had intimated that he might be, 
— to become one of their number. It had not, they 


70 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


admitted, seemed wise to him at that time to invite 
one of them to become his confessor, — he had, it 
seemed probable, a Huguenot wife. Indeed it was 
certain that not a cross, not a saint’s relic, not an 
image of the Saviour, not one holy painting had been 
seen in his house. To his private chapel, he had 
not, however, admitted them. He had said, that his 
wdfe preferred to have the observance of his holy 
hours in his chapel. It had been made apparent to 
them, that he was a devout child of the Church, as 
well as friendly to their mission. 

Before La Plaque was sent away with the stran- 
gers, he had already visited the L’Esperance en Dieu, 
under the pretence of selling vegetables to the sail- 
ors ; and had returned laden with information, of 
little value or much, as to the real purposes of the 
colonists who accompanied the missionaries. They 
were prepared to make a permanent settlement in 
western Acadia ; and their commander had the royal 
promise of ultimately controlling the trade of the 
Penobscot. 

La Tour, who never allowed the grass to grow 
under his feet when he had interests at stake, set out 
that night to hurry to completion his fort at the 
mouth of the St. John. 

He left a letter for his wife, whose return was im- 
minent, — she might arrive at any hour, — to forward 
more men, provisions and munitions. He added in 
a postscript, that her dreaded Jesuit missionaries had 
finally appeared in Acadia, and that he had sent 


MARCHIONESS DE OUERCHEVILLE. 71 

them as far off as possible, under instructions to 
Imbert to give them no advantage. 

It was written upon the margin, that they were 
under the leadership of Chevalier Charles de Menou, 
Sieur Hilaire Charnace. 


72 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


IX. 


A FLOATING JESUIT. 

' I ''HE Cavalier Charles de Menou, Sieur Hilaire 
Charnac^ of La Eochelle,^ was better known in 
his mature years as Charnac4 ; his father having been 
a younger brother of Baron Hercule Charnac^, the 
most eminent of the French diplomats in the age of 
Louis XIII., to whom the kingdom owed so much of 
its foreign prestige. 

Charles upon leaving his early home, accompanied 
by his Jesuit teacher and confessor Palladio, went 
first to St. Pol de Leon in Bretagne ; but he attracted 
too much attention from his teachers to remain in 
obscurity. Upon his removal to the Jesuit college 
in Paris, his conscience was placed under the care 
of Arrighi, by whom he was introduced to Mme. 
de Guercheville. 

Her drawing-room offered a delightful contrast to 
his lonely cell in the Eue St. Jacques. Following as 
it did upon his mendicant life, and irksome service 

1 Charles la Tour was commonly understood to have originated 
in Re, off the La Rochelle harbor, — most likely from the death of 
his mother there, and his sailing thence for America. 


A FLOATING JESUIT. 


73 


of the most wretched of men in the hour of disease, 
it seemed like re-entering the home of his mother. 
- The Marchioness, by beautiful words and matronly 
affection, re-enforced the instruction he had already 
received, — to hold himself to the most rigid obedience, 
to abandon himself, never to think of himself, his 
mental, or even moral progress, but to unbosom all 
his thoughts, his impulses, his character in its inmost 
recesses to his confessor for the sole purpose of abdi- 
cating his own will and judgment, to make himself a 
living holocaust, grateful to the Divine Majesty, ren- 
dering to the nod of his Superior not only obedience 
in his will but in his intellect, his understanding, — 
to think the thoughts of his Superior, not on account 
of the Superior’s wisdom but because he is God’s 
place, — so in perfect concord completely and quickly 
executing every task, — never so much as once 
thinking of prudence or discretion but solely of obe- 
dience as a soldier of the cross. 

Charnac^ was charmed with his new instructor. 
It was a renewal of his boyhood dreams, to converse 
with an intelligent and devout woman. Little by 
little he was led to defer his entering upon priestly 
vows ; it being thought that his peculiar talents 
would be far more useful at present in secular life. 
He was a scholar of the three vows : ^ but when it 
was evident to his superiors, and evident to himself, 
that he was likely to succeed largely in a business 
way ; and when it appeared that his great executive 

1 Poverty, chastity, obedience. 


74 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


ability fitted him to become the responsible head of 
Acadian colonization, he was at his own request re- 
leased from his vows, — it being credible that he 
would achieve most for the Church if not bound to 
personal poverty, that his vows might be at any time 
renewed, that for the present, the Order would gain 
more by his voluntary obedience and private gains 
and influence than by his doing the same business 
hampered by ecclesiastical form. 

It was believed that the heart of Loyola was in 
him, trained as he had been in his youth to some 
soldierly service in his native city, — and that he 
would serve faithfully the behests of the General of 
the Order. 

He Ifad indeed the heart of Loyola, who was theo- 
retically inferior to the Pope ; but who in practice 
did what he had a mind to, when his judgment and 
that of the Pope differed. 

Charles of little knew what valuable informa- 
tion Charles of La Eochelle had stolen from his 
house. It was a copy of Thomas k Kempis’ De Imi- 
tatione Christi, inscribed “ To Constance Bernon from 
Sieur Hilaire Charnac4.” La Tour had never opened 
the book, or seen the name of his rival ; and he did 
not miss it when his rival put into his pocket the 
keepsake, which he had given to Constance, upon the 
night he last saw her, at her father’s house. 

In his oiled clothing, pacing his quarter-deck, as 
the rain fell, just before the short day closed, — it 
was the first of December, — Charnac4 strained his 


A FLOATING JESUIT. 


75 


eyes toward the black firs of Cape Sable, thinking 
more about her who had so fingered the book as 
almost to wear it out, than he did about personally 
imitating Christ. 

He had heard that she had perished in the dread- 
ful siege of her native city. But, alas for him, he 
had seen with his own eyes, in that fatal house of 
Charles la Tour, not only this precious memento of 
former years, but here and there about the living 
room, and by the door ajar in the little sleeping room 
that led out of it, articles of apparel, and the et cetera 
a woman keeps about her, which were like those 
Constance Bernon affected when she was a mere 
child. 

Then too he had found the margin of A Kempis 
marked in Constance’s handwriting of date within 
the month : — Behold me, then, hungering and 
thirsting after Thy righteousness ; and let me not be 
sent empty away.” 

He was now certain that Constance was alive, 
that she was in Acadia, that she was the wife of that 
Protestant hypocrite Charles la Tour. He had care- 
fully measured the man with his smooth exterior; 
and he had concluded that the mastery would be with 
himself. He believed not only in his right arm, but 
in that religious power so potent with his King, and 
in that mysterious Order which was mightier than 
all kings. He concluded to abide his time. 

Alas, for him, his heart belonged to Constance, and 
it rose up in rebellion ; she had always owned it ; 


76 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


his fealty to his teacher had been the result of his 
ambition to be somebody, to rise with the rising tide 
of Jesuit influence in his native country. His uncle’s 
laurels would not let him sleep. Now he was in a 
fair way to win not only position, but great wealth 
out of a monopoly so soon to be his own. Why not 
now give his heart formally to Constance, with what- 
ever of religion there might be in it, much or little ? 

Having deliberately set out from France upon a 
plot to ruin the Protestant Lieutenant General of 
Acadia, and despoil him of his office, his fair fame, 
and his goods, should he not despoil him also of his 
wife ? 

It was news, indeed, that he, who had been pro- 
nounced an enemy by the General of the Jesuits, 
had a wife. It was news, that she was Constance 
Bernon risen from the gaunt famine heaps of La 
Eochelle. Was Constance indeed alive ? Had God 
accepted all the masses he had offered for her safety, 
in that grim war which — had he been in power — 
he would have prevented for her sake ? 

It must be that her Guardian Angel, whom he had 
always looked on as his own rival for the affections 
of Constance, had snatched her away before the doom 
fell upon her father’s house. He remembered now, 
that her older brother Godefroi had already entered 
into the Acadian fur trade, in a small way, and that 
he had spoken of extending his business. 

This discovery of Constance in New France must 
be considered. It might put a new face upon his 


A FLOATING JESUIT. 


77 


plans ; it certainly gave him a new motive in life. 
Had he not already rapped his knuckles upon the 
gilded world, and found it hollow ? If, after all, he 
had been mistaken, and there was a woman in it, if 
Constance was still alive, he had something more to 
live for than gathering fur and coin, and building up 
an ecclesiastical organization which had, so far, failed 
to fulfil the dreams of his youth. 

Piety, to be sure, there was piety ; but the same 
quality existed outside the Order, — here was Thomas 
^ Kempis. And for Constance, she was certainly as 
good as her Guardian Angel, whoever he might be. 

Piety, — to be sure he himself had gained too lit- 
tle of it in all these years. Was he at heart any 
better than he was when he disputed with Constance, 
and despised her wise words ? Who now should be 
his teacher, if by all his schooling he had not already 
learned the way of life ? He had trampled upon the 
human heart, and tried to efface from the earth do- 
mestic affection, to make himself the part of an 
Order, — to become in the words of his founder, “ like 
a little crucifix, which is turned about at the will of 
him who holds it.” How, indeed, he was dead to the 
Order, and alive to Constance. 

Hature moves by extremes. The pendulum in the 
heart of Charnac^ was swinging back to the point 
where it was before the Jesuits mastered him. 

And he paced the deck first in the gentle rain, 
then in the soft falling snow, as the weather changed 
in his long night watch. Indeed, there was now no 


78 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


occasion to sleep, if Constance was still alive. That 
she was married made no difference. He had seen 
too much of French society to consider that an ob- 
stacle. Four thousand men of gentle blood had per- 
ished by duels in his own country within a score of 
years.^ Charles la Tour should die ; or he would 
himself willingly die, upon the brink of this great 
wilderness. 

Their plan, however, — that is, the plan of the 
General of the Jesuits, — contemplated war, if need 
be, to dispossess his wily and powerful rival ; war, as 
soon as his present reconnoitring expedition could 
be wisely supplemented by suitable forces to be 
brought to Acadia ; war to be begun with or without 
provocation, — then to be justified to the King, who 
was in leading strings, then authorized by him upon 
the ground that La Tour was in the wrong, — surely 
all this would be a small thing for the accom- 
plished Jesuits in the King’s confidence to compass. 

Kow, who could tell what the chances of war 
might be ? Constance would live ; and she would 
have a husband left. Who he might be, depended 
upon the power of France, when brought to bear 
against Acadia. France would no longer tolerate the 
Protestant La Tour, who was to be set forth as a 

1 A note in Masson’s Richelieu states that two hundred and fifty 
years ago, it was not uncommon for the Catholic clergy, who were 
often sensitive and touchy upon many points, and who were rarely 
seen in professional garb, to fight duels. Private combat was in 
that age more fatal to the best blood of France than even war. 


A FLOATING JESUIT, 


79 


traitor; the Bastile was ready, and the headsman, 
— and there had been political murders on less 
grounds. 

But what would Constance say ? No matter now. 
Charnace had come to that time of life when he had 
no sentiment, no wish, no passion, but he had pur- 
pose ; he would not brook denial ; he would have 
what he wanted ; he could, and he would. What 
was a woman in the wilderness ? If he made up 
his mind to marry, he purposed to do it. And who 
should hinder him ? 

But Constance would not refuse him, whenever he 
should renounce the Order, and give her his whole 
heart. What was La Tour to her? Nothing, be 
was certain. He knew the wife too well; and he 
had seen her husband. Her husband was a politic, 
self seeking, self satisfied, fur trader and politician ; 
he was not a man. He might as well die on the block. 
The Acadian world would not miss him. Charnace 
could look after the beaver pelts and the cod fish, and 
the government of the country ; and do it all before 
breakfast daily, and spend his days rationally with 
his wife. 

Would it be possible, — and at this point Charnac4 
paused long to consider, — that Charles of La Eochelle 
should ever in this life become so transformed in 
character as to become to Constance a tolerable sub- 
stitute for her Guardian Angel ? 

Breakers ahead ! Breakers ahead ! on the star- 
board quarter ! ” shouted the man on the lookout. 


80 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Putting about his helm, and standing away to the 
open sea, Charnace turned in, and slept till the 
morning. 

Meantime Charles la Tour, was — in the self com- 
placent night y^atches — making long tacks in the 
Bay of Pundy, with his heart intent upon fortifying 
his valuable Indian trade. It had never entered his 
mind, that St. John was the disciple beloved of 
Jesus, an holy apostle. St. John was — to La Tour 
— merely a fur trader at a good point ; and he 
should have a fort for his defence against predatory 
traders who were none the better for being followers 
of Loyola. 


THE NIGHT WATCH. 


81 


X. 

THE XTGHT WATCH. 

T TPOX the first of December, the early morning 
sun shone clearly upon the fine harbor, and the 
large timber of La Heve ; as it had shone during in- 
numerable ages upon the eastern margin of a lone 
continent covered with a wilderness, waiting for the 
dawn of human civilization. Constance was early astir, 
moving in the edge of the forest, and her Souriquois 
people were smoking themselves in their huts in the 
attempt to get breakfast. 

An inch or two of snow like a heavy hoar frost 
was thinly scattered in patches over the newly burnt 
clearings and the margin of the sea. The sky soon 
however began to gather vapor, which hung in dra- 
pery folds. Some portions of the sky looked as if a 
field of cloud had been ploughed in furrows ; and 
in other parts, the fleecy clouds were regularly but 
loosely arranged, not unlike the receding hangings 
over a theatrical stage. The sun poured down 
through the rifts, illuminating portions of the sea 
with intense brilliancy. The watery waste was not 
yet stilled after the late heavy blow. Far off upon 
the horizon the sunbeams were tossing upon a myriad 
6 


82 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


points of quickly changing waves. Nearer the shore 
the sea was dark by cloud shadows. Nearer still 
was another narrow strip of sunshine dancing on the 
sea. And the waters near shore were sullen in 
shadow. 

From the heights upon which she stood, Constance 
could see a ship far to the southwest, making toward 
Cape Sable under the light air now upon her lar- 
board quarter. A cloud rift over her, let down the 
sunshine like a benediction ; so that she rode with 
ghost-like sails of unearthly whiteness, — as if 
bleached by processes unknown, and sailing in su- 
pernatural light ; but the hither sea was black, and 
the headlands westward were gloomy with clouds, 
which hung so low and so dense, that it was like 
cloud land ready to fall upon rock, hill, and forest. 

Judging that the wind would haul round to the 
eastward, and save her some beating, Constance de- 
layed a little hoisting the sail of her shallop, the 
Sable, for the home voyage. She saw the far-off 
stranger disappearing behind the dark shores west- 
ward ; the sable cloud lighted a little, but still hung 
in that quarter, — till the wind shifted, then the 
sable cloud was blown off. The melody of the sea 
deepened upon the shore; heavier billows surged 
around the islands and upon the shingle beaches; 
and Constance set sail before the freshening breeze, 
— scudding swiftly over a slightly pitching sea, run- 
ning free before the wind to the sweet music of the 
water rippling against the bows of the Sable. The 


THE NIGHT WATCH. 


83 


changing sun and shadow of the early morning con- 
tinued first to lighten then to darken the features of 
her Indian boatmen. 

Later in the day the wings of the wind were laden 
with light sheets of moisture, with which the atmos- 
phere near Fuiidy is often surcharged by the moving 
of so vast a body of water, rising and falling to such 
height. Under the great veil Constance gave the 
helm to Nibi, and then she slept ; the Sable under 
new canvas moving like a spirit along the dimly 
lighted aisles of the ocean. 

Toward night the air lightened ; and the rain set 
in, — little of it, but the more welcome as sooner 
conveying to the voyagers the upswelling massive 
tone of the tide bell off the home harbor. The wind 
had slackened, and Constance could hear bursts of 
sound as the billows thundered upon the ledges, and 
the notes of the bell at first faintly stealing over the 
surface of the sea like a low dirge from viewless lands, 
then the weird floating music came in deep peals, as 
if ringing from far off cathedrals. The tide bell was 
left behind, tolling in the darkness; and the lights 
by which to enter safely were seen glimmering 
athwart the uneasy surface of the inner basin. 
Sweeter far than the bell chime, was the noise of the 
fierce ^vatch dogs which Constance heard when Ta- 
pouse and Nibi brought her to the welcome landing. 

All day, whether restless or reposing, the heart of 
Constance had been filled with foreboding. It can- 
not be said that her eyes were holden from what was 


84 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


about to be revealed. If she had the practical eh- 
ergy, good sense, fine organizing power, and spiritu- 
ality of the Abbess Angelique, she had also not only 
the devout mind of Madame Guyon but her second 
sight. The very instant her eyes had rested upon 
that strangely illuminated ship in the morning light, 
she had a half belief that Charnace had followed her 
into the new world, as a Jesuit missionary. 

By a pitch knot she read her husband’s letter. 
Missing her Thomas k Kempis, she knew that 
Charles, — not La Tour who never appeared to know 
that it was in the house, — had taken it. 

With inexpressible agony she prayed all night. 
First, however, by well ordered forethought, she set 
the men to preparing a sloop for the fortifying of St. 
John ; that they might sail as soon as the weather 
should change. It was a kind of care which rested 
lightly upon her, this direction of men in preparing 
for St. John; toiling all night — not leaving her 
work to pray alone, she shut the doors of her heart 
and communed with Him who seeth in secret. The 
ordering of potatoes, corn, powder, ball, oak, iron, salt, 
salt junk, cordage, canvas, clothing, axes, muskets, 
traps, and cannon, disturbed her serenity of soul as 
little as the smooth and silent sea is vexed by the 
curling fog which sweeps over it near Port Latour in 
dogdays. 

I said that it was with anguish unspeakable that she 
prayed all night. Unknown sorrows are always bod- 
ing beneath the calm and silent sea. Wrecks, and 


THE NIGHT WATCH. 


85 


dead men's bones, and all manner of foul things 
crawling or dead, — the slime, the garbage, the off- 
scouring of all the world are found in the depths of 
ocean. 

Had not Constance sometimes reproached herself, 
that she had clung to the Pauline text not to be un- 
equally yoked with an unbeliever ? Had not Paul 
also said, that the believing wife should win to the 
faith her unbelieving husband ? What might not 
Charles of La Eochelle have become, if she had 
married him ? The very foremost of the religious 
reformers of France, she was half ready to believe. 

Still she could not rid herself of her woman’s 
instinct, which had told her, that he had never given 
her more than a fragment of his heart. On the other 
hand, as she herself had clung to the God of her 
youth, making Him first in her life, she could not 
blame Charles of La Eochelle for clinging to what 
religious ideas he had, after the Jesuits had the han- 
dling of him at ten years old. Could his mother 
have lived, it might have been difierent. 

The experience of her married life had made it cer- 
tain, that Charles la Tour of La Tour was less spirit- 
ually minded than he would have been in a world of 
less traffic and of smaller political possibilities. 

Then she gathered up all her loyalty of heart toward 
God and toward man, and prayed ; prayed with eyes 
flowing with scalding tears, — amid all her directions 
given in those hours when the thickening rain was 
giving place to snow in the cooler temperature after 


86 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


midnight. She prayed for her husband, that in his 
personal life she might be to him a conscience incar- 
nate, quickening and reinforcing his own moral sense ; 
and that he might have such good sense in affairs as 
would make him the fit instrument for planting a 
French Protestant nation in Acadia. 

And then, the more surely to strike where the 
blow was needed, she prayed respecting Kings and 
Jesuits, the Pope, and the Eeformation, — for Eng- 
land as well as France. Well she might do this, since 
Acadia was kicked like a foot ball between France 
and England five times within the century ; and all 
her own wit and wisdom and that of the two Charleses 
in Acadia availed as little (save as their own spirits 
were disciplined by their attempts to do what seemed 
to them present duty,) as their own attempts when 
new and green in the Bay of Fundy, — not knowing 
the habit of the ocean on that coast, — to stem the 
outrush or the inrush of tides from thirty to sixty 
feet high, swinging this way or that with the whole 
force of the Atlantic behind it. 

She did wisely, indeed, to pray for the foolish 
Kings Charles and Louis, neither of whom, perhaps, 
deserved to have a head upon his shoulders. 

She prayed for the stranger ship moving westward 
in the night. Her men had turned in for a short 
sleep before dawn ; and she walked up and down the 
pier, in the gently driving snow, — and all her old 
life upon the coast of France came back to her. 
Biit she calmed herself, when she prayed for the ship 


THE NIGHT WATCH. 


87 


silently sailing toward the Penobscot. She stood 
still at the cable post, upon the verge of high tide, 
and prayed most earnestly for the beautiful river, 
that it might not become the home of the papal 
church in America. And, — somehow she was 
strangely drawn to it, — she prayed that the eyes of 
her child friend might be opened in the light of a 
new w’orld ; and that he might reopen the Bible, 
which he had learned to read at his mother’s knee. 

It did not enter her heart, that Charnac4 still 
cared for herself personally. She thought of him — 
it is strange that she did so in view of all that came 
to pass — as cold at heart, like an iceberg. 

Standing long upon the verge of the pier at high 
tide, with the light snow falling upon her, it is possi- 
ble that she was slightly chilled. But there came 
vividly into her mind the forms of ice she had seen 
drifting through the seas, among the icebergs, when 
she came upon the American coast, before reaching 
Acadia. Constance remembered, rising twenty feet 
out of the sea, not far from the ship, a finely pro- 
portioned vase of pure ice, — fluted, decorated, glow- 
ing with tints emerald and sapphire, — the sea water 
spouting from the brim, and the waves tossing their 
spray upon the sides of the stem and falling back 
in foam upon the pedestal. Half the bowd burst off 
with a sharp crack; and it all fell with a heavy 
plunge into the sea. 

As if her mind was in some prophetic mood, she 
could not clear her imagination of this imagery. 


88 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Before Charnac4 left her side in her father’s house, 
she remembered thinking of him, as of polished steel, 
possibly of plate armor, — but that was not cold 
enough as she thought of him now. The exquisitely 
polished forms of ice floating in the sea, — touched 
and retouched by the sun and by the waves, till they 
are like crystal, or pearl, — this was all she could 
think of. 

His heart must, indeed, have been cold and glitter- 
ing, like an island of ice ; else he would have melted 
under the warmth of affection that had surrounded 
his youth. 

She thought of him now, as sent out by his Supe- 
rior to proclaim — what? Not the love of God, the 
warmth of divine friendship for man ; but what 
looked to her like an ice-cutting machine, to saw out 
mere crystalline vases. 

The spiritual terror awakened in her mind, by the 
appearance of Charnace in Acadia, was based upon 
the belief that there might be personal collision ; each 
friend being actuated by the sense of a divine mis- 
sion, — missions opposed driving them apart. 

Constance could not bring her mind to pray in 
respect to her old-time lover, save that he jnight see 
new truth in a new world. But in the small hours 
of the night, she did pray most earnestly against the 
success of the colonial plans of the Marchioness de 
Guercheville. 


A FEUDAL CASTLE. 


89 


XL 

A FEUDAL CASTLE. 

TT indicated good sense on the part of La Tour that 
he named his next fort for the king he intended 
to serve, — Fort La Tour. When Constance finally- 
moved thither from Fort Louis, leaving it in charge 
of Simon Imhert whose room was more desired than 
his company by the Jesuits at Peutagouet/ she could 
not help teasing her husband a little that he had 
become a papist, — which she discovered by no change 
of life or even of views, but by his being so denomi- 
nated in the land grant of fifty square leagues from 
Louis XIIL at the mouth of the St. John, or the 
Ouangondy as the Indians had called it.^ 

‘^It is,” replied Lieutenant General La Tour to 
Constance, “ as proper that I should become a Catholic 
for the public interest, as that Henry IV. should have 
done so.” 

“Lecherous and treacherous are the European 
kings,” answered Constance. “The feudal lords of 

^ The use of the Penobscot station had been now given to the 
Jesuit fathers for a term of years. 

2 The river was discovered by Champlain, upon St. John's 
day, 1604. 


90 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


America will be best, and do best, to stand upon 
their own feet. I fear lest Louis shall abandon 
you, after all. The king is none the less likely to 
betray you, for your refusal to betray him on the 
Penobscot.” 

“ This land grant does not look as if he intended 
to desert me.” 

“ Is it not rather,” asked Constance, a mere sop 
thrown to you, to keep you quiet, while Eazilly and 
Charnace take possession of the whole country ? ” 

“It had not occurred to me that way,” said La 
Tour. “ Acadia is a large area. The sending out of 
Eazilly as governor will be helpful, not injurious. 
The development of the country will increase values. 
And Charnace is not likely to have political aspira- 
tions, if he finds preferment in the Church.” 

“ Simon Imbert believes from the talk of the colo- 
nists, that Charnac^ has already a Lieutenant Gover- 
nor’s commission in his pocket,” remarked Constance. 
“And I gathered the same thing from what Governor 
Eazilly let fall, when he came to Fort Louis to get 
your permission to settle on the Scotch grant at 
La Heve.” 

“ The concessions I made to Eazilly will not fail to 
benefit me,” said La Tour. “ And if there had been 
anything in the rumor of a subordinate commission 
to Charnac^, the Governor would have told me. He 
is amiable. So long as he lives there will be no 
troiible in Acadia.” 

“ The most that I get out of my husband’s baro- 


A FEUDAL CASTLE. 


91 


netcy, aside from the pleasure of his company,” said 
a merry ringing voice in the hall, “ is what I get from 
my horse and hounds and hunting-horn.” 

Upon this, Henrietta now appeared in her hunting 
belt ; the heartiness of her greeting increased by the 
vigor of life she had gained by her second winter 
in Acadia. The sporting reputation which Fort La 
Tour carried into the traditions of a later age was due 
to Henrietta’s ardor in the chase, not to Constance 
who had no taste for the exhilaration of being upon 
the alert for a buck breaking the dry twigs. La Tour 
and his father Were occupied with a saw-mill, and 
with quarrying for finishing the fort. Henrietta took 
it upon herself to keep the men in meat, which was 
no difficult task, — the caribou and the red deer 
being within easy reach. 

Henrietta did honor to her queen in adapting 
herself to a hut in the wilderness as cheerily as to 
a palace, as if Castle La Tour were Whitehall. In 
garments of thick gray frieze, she hesitated not upon 
occasion to handle the woodman’s axe, or to cut holes 
in the ice to fish for dinner, or to mount her snow- 
shoes and follow a moose. The abounding health, 
vouchsafed to so many women in the long winters of 
the Horth, was so fully manifest in the first white 
woman in Hew Brunswick, that she never yielded 
the palm to a squaw in anything that pertained 
to helping herself, or to helping those around her. 
Blithely she bore more than her share of life’s heavier 
burdens. She had the health to do it; and it was 


92 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


her belief, that her husband was the better balanced 
for it, — more delicate in his attention, more winsome 
and womanly in his affection, — having a wife “strong 
enough to tie to,” as the wiry Acadian boatmen were 
wont to express it. 

The St. John fortress makes a large figure in the 
American Orient, as sheltering the brave and the beau- 
tiful. And it is one of the stories of early Acadian 
winters, which mothers have heard from their mothers 
during eight generations, that, when the yearly French 
packet returned, wines were so abundant as to be 
served three quarts to a man per diem. It was in 
those days, that happy Acadia was free from the noise 
of war. The Micmac Scozway, who won such a repu- 
tation as the best fiddler of his time along the New 
England shore, first practised in Fort La Tour ; and 
his “pretty, odd, barbarous tunes” have an established 
place in history. 

There came from over the sea domestic heirlooms 
of the house of Bernon, and certain pieces out of 
ancestral Piedmont. And there came to the castle 
upon the banks of the Ouangondy refugees straight 
out of the fires of persecution in the old world; 
and they were set to repose under the peaceful and 
musical pines of the Acadian rivers. That riches 
were abundant, that there was a great gathering of 
war material, that there was much drilling of soldiers 
and training of Indian scouts, — we gather from the 
old tradition; and we should hear much more but 
for the roar of great guns, which soon arose over the 


A FEUDAL CASTLE. 


93 

swirling waters, where the swift current of the river 
mingles with the tides of ocean. 

The mouth of the St. John was fortified by nature 
before La Tour touched it. Mighty gates were erected 
not far above the fort, which kept the Bay of Fundy 
from overwhelming with its roaring tides the great 
Bay of Kenebekawskoi above the narrows of the 
river ; and which kept the great river from degener- 
ating into a mere estuary of the Atlantic, for at least 
the score of miles covered by an inland basin. The 
narrows are only eighty yards wide, and four hundred 
long. A ridge of rocks makes across this flume way, 
at such height as to give only seventeen feet of water 
at low tide ; this makes a reversible waterfall, twice 
in every tide. The average tide is twenty feet : when 
the tide is out, the river is twelve feet higher 
than the ocean, — and the downpouring fall is twelve 
feet high ; at high tide the ocean is five feet higher 
than the river, and the cataract is reversed, — flow- 
ing up the river and falling five feet. There are 
only about ten minutes during each outflow or inflow, 
in which the cascade is at a level, when shipping can 
pass the point. 

At all this, a stranger is perplexed not a little. He 
goes to the hidden ledge ; and he sees no waterfall. 
In a few minutes he goes again, and there is a dis- 
tinct, sharply defined fall, tumbling up the river ; in 
a few hours he sees it a great cataract. Then it all 
dies away again, and the river is smooth. Next he 
beholds the whole thing reversed. In great freshets. 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


94 - 

the tides do not rise to the level of the river; and 
then the falls pour seaward all the time, and are 
as impassable as Niagara. 

It ought not, thought La Tour, to be very hard to 
protect this dam during the few moments of daily 
passage. He therefore felt very secure in his fort ; 
which stood upon a gentle rise of ground, at an angle 
commanding the harbor and the sharp turn made by 
the river in entering. It was located perhaps half a 
mile below the falls, at the tip of a tongue of land 
which juts out toward what is now Navj'- Island ; 
to which a bar makes out at low water, extend- 
ing beyond the point of the peninsula upon which 
stands the city of St. John. The town of Carle ton 
has now nearly overgrown the ancient site of Fort 
La Tour, a portion of the earth-works remaining a 
few years since. 

The fort was of stone, one hundred and eighty feet 
square, with four bastions at the angles ; so cornering 
as to bring two bastions toward the lower harbor, 
two toward the upper, and two inland, — the tongue 
of land admitting of such defence. There were 
palisades without; and within, two dwellings, and 
a chapel, and the usual storage for munitions and 
soldiery. 

So La Tour was ready to stand at odds with the 
world, armed with twenty pieces of heavy ordnance. 


THE QUEEN OF ACADIA, 


95 


XII. 

THE QUEEN OF ACADIA. 

I ''0 set every Jesuit to act as a spy on every other 
Jesuit was fundamental to the system of that 
Order, which two hundred and fifty years ago played 
such an important part in Europe, and which at- 
tempted to control America in place of what Blaxton 
of Shawmut called the tyranny of the lords-brethren. 
Whatever may have been the state of things in Bos- 
ton under Winthrop, it is certain, that those who 
sought to control the Bay, and who trimmed off ears 
they thought too long upon the Mystic, only lacked 
organization to become the master tyrants of the 
world. 

Looking at it merely as a machine, — without once 
inquiring what became of human hearts, of longings, 
of affections, of the homes of the world, and of reli- 
gious and civil liberty, — it is impossible to sit down 
calmly and face the system of Loyola, as it was in 
the days of its supreme glory, without an admiration, 
bordering upon awe, before an Ism which took men 
in multitudes, and uncovered every secret thought 
and aspiration, and adaptation, then linked them 
together by oaths to each other and to God, not only 


96 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


to do what they were commanded to do by a Supe- 
rior, who stood to them in the place of God re- 
quiring unquestioning obedience, but to act as spies 
upon each other, reporting to the Superior every 
variation in word or act which might indicate a 
swerving even of a thought on the part of a single 
brother from the command to lay aside private judg- 
ment and live as a tool for the handling of the 
Superior. 

If Charnac4 had not been brought up to become a 
living part of such a system ; if he had not been am- 
bitious of the very highest place in an organization 
which could control the interior as well as the exte- 
rior lives of a vast number of the most eminent per- 
sons in the civilized and even the barbaric world ; if 
he had not been hopeful of ultimately handling the 
whatever-of-conscience the kings in his day might 
happen to have about them at any given time ; if he 
had not believed himself ordained of God to gain the 
mastery in thought and action — ruling the nations 
somewhat after the order of the secret powers celes- 
tial or infernal — ruling in secret — issuing mandates 
as little known to the world as the thoughts of arch- 
angels or the powers of darkness ; if Charnac4 upon 
the sunny waters of the Penobscot, and when wan- 
dering through the primeval forest of Maine, had not 
been possessed of these great ambitions, — he would 
never have filled his small corner of the globe with 
spies to entrap the unwary, and to embroil New 
France in civil war. 


THE QUEEN OF ACADIA. 


97 


He had thoroughly informed himself about La Tour 
before he saw him, so far as he could by the family 
traits as known to the old world ; he had seen him ; 
he had drawn out from faithful Simon Imbert every 
point which would enable him to judge what his 
enemy was thinking about every day, — and now he 
kept spies upon him, notably a Jesuit confessor who 
had palmed himself off upon credulous La Tour as 
a Franciscan. Fortunately La Tour was little given 
to confession; and he was merely reported as not 
very pious, as being only nominally a Catholic, as 
being really as much a Protestant as ever he had 
been, — as really recognizing no divinity outside of 
La Tour. 

Little was there need, that Charnac^ should set a 
spy upon Constance. He knew too well all that she 
thought; or he believed that he did. He knew 
probably all that he was capable of knowing. As it 
is impossible for the finite to comprehend the Infi- 
nite, and impurity to understand the heart of God, so 
there is something in the soul of every one made in 
God’s image, something in the soul of every one 
within whom God himself abides, unknowable save 
by kinship of spirit. Charnac4 was too little like 
Constance to know all that she carried in her heart. 
She would have been an enigma to her own husband, 
if his mind had been perceptibly cognizant of any 
high spiritual truths and influences ; as it was, he 
was not different from a bat — blind in the sunlight. 
The depths of the soul of Constance, all her secret 
7 


98 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


desires, all her purposes, all her self conquest, all her 
devotion to man and to God, — were known to no 
finite mind unless to her Guardian Angel. 

She knew better than her husband the absolute 
necessity for keeping spies by day and by night at 
the side of Charnace ; and the happy and honorable 
devices to which she resorted would have fitted her 
to act as the Superior of the Jesuitical nuns, had not 
that Order been suppressed by him who styled him- 
self the vicar of God upon the Tiber. 

It was only little by little that she finally arrived 
at some knowledge of what Charnac4 really came to 
America for: that such a man as he came upon no 
trivial errand, that such a man as he had objects 
ulterior to the baptism of a few barbarians, she was 
confident. 

It was in the spring months, when she had re- 
turned to her Souriquois children upon the lakes of 
the Tusket, and had gathered them in great numbers 
for a few weeks of religious instruction, as well as 
instruction in the art of making maple sugar, — that 
she learned that Governor Eazilly was dead, and 
that his brother had sold out all his riglits to Char- 
nac^, and that her old lover now claimed in perpetuo 
the best harbor upon the Alexander grant. La Heve, 
and the swift coursing waters of Digby gut and all 
the old Biencourt property, which her husband had 
given to Eazilly for temporary use during his own 
life time in exchange for his influence in obtaining 
the St. John land grant for Ln Tour. 


TEE QUEEN OF ACADIA, 


99 


And it now appeared by authoritative proclama- 
tion, to all whom it might concern, that Charnace 
held a Lieutenant General’s commission from Louis 
XIII., by which he was to rule La H^ve, Port Eoyal, 
and that portion of Acadia west of a north and south 
line across the middle of the bay of Fundy, excluding 
the fifty square leagues given La Tour at the mouth 
of St. John. And this vast territory, including Pen- 
tagoiiet, and the fur trade of the Penobscot, was now 
to be held by Charnac^ as a fief under the King, 
who was to receive ten per cent of the annual profit 
of the fur trade. 

Here indeed, thought Constance, was a ground for 
war in Acadia. Louis XIII. had stolen from her hus- 
band what Henry IV. had given him by way of Pou- 
trincourt and Biencourt, and given it to Charnac4. 
And Isaac de Eazilly’s brother — Esau very likely — 
had sold to Charnac^ part of the Scotch grant owned 
by the father-in-law and husband of Constance. 
And whatever was to be said of the coast of Acadia 
westward to the Penobscot, that river and its trade 
belonged unquestionably to her husband by right of 
settlement long years past, as well by the confir- 
mation royal as by the defence of it all by the feudal 
lord La Tour who held the fief. 

All this, then, was brought to America, in that 
pious pinnace, L’Espdrance en Dieu, with her fierce 
dogs of war growling between decks. Was there 
anything more brought in this craft of the Jesuit 
missionaries ? There might be. 


100 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


When Constance returned hot-hearted to the Feu- 
dal Castle, — which her husband still held under his 
strange king and which he purposed to hold for king 
La Tour, come what would, — it was with a queenly 
determination by the help of heaven to maintain at 
least this spot, her home and that of the little child 
God had given her. She had now breathed the free 
Acadian air so long, that her respect for the kings of 
her native country was somewhat diminished, — as 
to their moral uprightness, and their right to rule 
unless for reason ; and in any event she did not be- 
lieve that Eichelieu’s puppet had any right to dispos- 
sess the La Tours, of whom her child was one, of 'what 
had been once given them by all the authority the 
world was bound to respect at the time when it was 
granted, — and what was theirs by the strength of the 
frontiersman’s right arm, and the actual improvement 
of the country. All the Bernon blood in her veins, 
— twelve or fifteen centuries at least traceable back 
to the Eoman soldiery who conquered Gaul, a stock 
improved by the native population of stalwart sav- 
agery upon the northern slopes of the Pyrenees and 
the hardy navigators of the Bay of Biscay, a stock 
flowering centuries since with noble houses, a stock 
fit for ruling in Acadia, — all the Bernon blood 
not yet cooled from the crusades against the Turks,^ 
not yet cooled from ancestral generations of armed 
merchantmen, not yet cooled from the heat of re- 
ligious devotion, a determination to serve God in 
1 A. D. 1191. 


THE QUEEN OF ACADIA, 


101 


their own way despite the pope and the king, — this 
Bernon blood rose to the throne at least in Acadia. 
Upon that spot Constance would live. The St. John 
belonged to her house ; she would hold it, — or die 
upon that spot. 

The Queen of Acadia found her husband turning 
codfish in the sun, upon the flakes near the fort. 


102 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XIIL 

OUANGONDY. 

'T^HEEE being no disputing the fact that Kazilly, 
— or Kasallai, or Easilli, or Eazilla, or Eazillais, 
or Eazillai, or Eosillon, or Eozilla, or whatever his 
name really was, ^ — Eazilly the redoubtable knight 
commander of St. John of Jerusalem, and commo- 
dore of Bretagne, who fought so gallantly as a naval 
captain in the siege of La Eochelle, — was now really 
dead ; and there being no dispute possible with one 
so well armed as Charnac^, as to powder and ball, 
and the King’s commission, and the agreement of 
Esau Eazilly in behalf of the dead Isaac, — the wisest 
thing for the La Tours to do was, first, to avoid 
present conflict ; second, to fortify their river ; third, 
to bring in such soldiers and colonists from Hugue- 
not lands as hated Eomanism, and who would fight 
for a principle; and, fourth, to make friends with 
the Kew Englanders. 

In pursuance of the plan to fortify and hold the 
Ouangondy, — by the help at least of the savages, 

1 The hooks relating to the period spell his name in all this 
variety of fashions. I have adopted the orthogmphy of Charlevoix 
and M. Eameau. 


OUANQONDY. 


103 


who cared more for their own great river, and the 
name that had been given to it by their fathers, and 
who cared more for their own warriors and medicine 
men, and especially for Constance, the Guardian Angel 
of the children of the Malachites of New Brunswick as 
well as of the Souriquois in Nova Scotia, than they 
did for Saint John or any other of the French saints, 
— it was determined to build an additional fort up the 
river fifty miles at Jemsek, where Salmon Eiver and 
the Grand Lake poured into the Ouangondy ; so pro- 
tecting the coal discoveries at the head of the lake 
and all the fur trade of the river. This fort is known 
to the French archives and to history by the name 
Jemsek, or Jumsack as the log drivers call it to-day. 
It should have been named Fort Constance, for the 
Acadian Queen ; since it was her idea to build it, and 
in the course of events it so turned out that she super- 
intended no small part of the work in its erection. 

It was on a June day that Simon Imbert, the 
faithful, who had dismantled Fort Louis and mounted 
the guns at Fort La Tour, took formal possession at 
the mouth of the river, and the flotilla of the La 
Tours ascended the Ouangondy. 

After they had run through the winding way 
above the Falls of St. John, from five to six hundred 
yards wide and two miles long, commonly called the 
gullet, and had entered upon the Kenebekawskoi, 
wide and far reaching, they saw the fir and the larch 
crowding down to the margin of the marshes ; then, 
upon the fresh water intervales above, they saw great 


104 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


sweeping elms, and, here and there, a black cherry tall 
as an oak with a butt big as a hogshead.^ Then, jour- 
neying onward, green walls of foliage arose sharply 
from the banks on either side. At every bend of the 
river, from the weedy margins or the shelter of the 
islands, wild fowl started up, — half swimming, half 
flying, then rising, — before the passengers of the 
Sable; and the crew of the freighting sloop Great 
Heart made merry with long shots at gray ducks and 
whistlers. The great northern diver was sometimes 
seen darting athwart the placid waters of the lake- 
like expansions of the beautiful river, or splashing 
the surface in alarm to escape the white-winged 
shallop, which advanced so swiftly under a favoring 
wind. 

‘‘ This contest for the possession of Acadia,” said 
Henrietta at the evening camp-fire, “is like one of 
the feuds between the great lords in former ages, 
when the fiefs were fought over inch by inch. We 
only need love and a lady to make a perfect parallel 
to half the wars of the middle ages.” 

Constance placed her hand upon her heart. Hen- 
rietta knew nothing of Sieur Hilaire Charnace which 
w^ould lead her to identify him with Charles de 
Menou, whose name she possibly remembered, from 
once mention by Constance. 

“Ho,” said Constance, “it is very certain that our 
Jesuit friend Charnac4, claiming to be the King’s 
Lieutenant Humber 2, has no love and no lady to 
1 La Hon ton’s Voyages, I. 248. 


OUANGONDY. 


105 


contend for in Acadia. His method of warfare is, 
however, far removed from that of the feudal barons 
whose stories amused our childhood. By concealment 
of his ultimate plans, he has obtained practical posses- 
sion of no small part of the country without contest. 
It will be hard for me to believe, that the amiable 
Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, now deceased, did 
not have something to do with it. In fact, he must 
have been a party to the plot at the outset, although 
he claimed to be a knight ready to give fair gage 
before battle.” 

The La Tours were not well known to Constance. 
There were depths in them, and heights in them, 
not easily reached by common standards for meas- 
uring men. Charnacd flattered himself that he knew 
Charles la Tour; but he was never more mistaken 
than in the estimate he made. The sublimity of her 
husband’s content, Constance never understood. She 
had faith in God. La Tour had faith in La Tour; 
that, whatever turned up. La Tour was likely to turn 
up at the top. 

“ Why Constance,” said Charles, removing his pipe, 
“ is not Acadia big enough for us both ? The St. 
John alone has more fur than I can easily handle. 
If I were to go up to the head waters now, and over 
upon the Miramichi, it would be worth as much to 
me as an Inca’s ransom. Besides, I have lost Port 
Eoyal twice before, and Pentagoiiet once before, and 
found them again. And I am now likely to come 
into possession of them again, by the time I get rich 


106 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


enough to develop them properly out of what trade 
I have to-day. It is all in the way of business, — 
profit and loss, loss to-day and profit to-morrow.’’ 

It was apparent that La Tour had a vivid memory 
of various adventures with Virginian scapegraces, 
Plymouth Pilgrims, and Scotch claimants; and that 
he worried little over any friction that might arise 
between himself and Charnac6, or any temporary loss 
to which he might be subjected. Moreover the La 
Tours were of a long lived stock. He fully expected 
to stand over the grave of his rival ; and if he were not 
himself in dotage, he might easily pick up whatever 
Charnace should leave behind him, — as the spurious 
titles to land left by Eazilly had been already picked 
up by the King’s Lieutenant Humber 2. 

This quietus from the lord of the Castle La Tour 
upon St. John agreed well with the digestion of his 
old father, who laughed heartily, and then emptied 
his pipe by rapping it gently upon one of the 
stone andirons of the camp fire. 

“ It is a capital night to spear for salmon,” he said, 
rising to full height, standing on tiptoe, stretching 
his arms upwards, and yawning. He was very tall ; 
and when Henrietta and Constance saw the baronet’s 
shadow upon the great rock behind him, they both 
re-echoed his laughter, which had become thoroughly 
Anglicised since he had become a Scotsman. They 
all launched out, paddling for the salmon. 

The Great Heart had carried on her deck the 
Otter for Constance, and the Lynx for Henrietta, 


OUANQONDY. 


107 


canoes beautified by their owners with colored sinews 
and porcupine quills, in a variety of pretty patterns, as 
if the boatwomen were not without affection for birch. 

When they were once alone, gliding over the dark 
and silent water, Constance said, — 

“ I am sure, Charles, that there is much truth in 
what you say of the resources of our noble river ; and 
it has occurred to me that during this fine summer 
weather, I can build the fort, while you and your 
father explore the heads of the rivers, and make 
arrangements to increase our trade.” 

This plan had already occurred to La Tour, 
whose confidence in his wife’s capacity needed no 
confirmation. 

“I cannot express to you,” continued Constance, 
— observing that her husband was in a receptive, 
though perhaps silent mood, — “the anxiety I feel 
relating to the movements of Charnac4. He is so 
able, so devoted to his purpose, so consecrated to his 
kind of religion, that he will allow nothing to stand 
before him till he rules alone in Acadia.” 

“I shall myself have much to say about that,” 
replied Charles. “ Besides, I have perfect faith, that 
your good angel will keep you ; and he will have to 
keep me also, since you are the guardian of the La 
Tours as well as of the Souriquois.” 

“Charnac^ I should have married before I saw 
you, if he had not first married his Jesuit confessor, 
and gone into the Order,” said Constance, with a 
frank heart, to her husband. 


108 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


‘‘ He was an unlucky dog, if that ’s the case,” said 
Charles. 

At that instant the birch-bark torch of La Tour 
the senior flamed around the bend of the river, illu- 
minating the dark foliage and the massive cliffs above 
the water ; and Henrietta displayed a salmon five feet 
and a half long and a foot in diameter.^ 

Charles la Tour never made further allusion to 
the revelation his wife had made to him, concerning 
her former friendship for Charnac^. He paid her the 
highest compliment a man can pay to a woman, — 
he trusted her: and had no anxiety to know her 
thoughts, save as she cared to reveal them. 

Kindling their own birch flambeaux, Charles and 
Constance wearied themselves, not with the sport of 
the hour, but with peering into shallows to watch the 
fish sleeping so securely, or gazing upon the play 
of light and shadow among the towering fir trees, or 
upon the face of the immense ledges rising sheer out 
of the water, touching up the black fringes of the 
river with their flaring and fading fire. 


1 La Honton, I. 246. 


JEMSEK. 


109 


XIV. 

JEMSEK. 

"TEMSEK is the water-alley — of slow current and 
^ great depth — leading from the Ouangondy, the 
front street of Fort Jemsek, to Grand Lake the back- 
yard of the Fort; the alley on the north, and the 
great river on the west. 

The noble sheet of water called, from time im- 
memorial, the Grand Lake, is separated from the St. 
John by a narrow alluvial hank ; the water extend- 
ing north some thirty miles, from two to five miles 
in width. It is connected by channels with French 
Lake, and with Maquapit. The water is singularly 
clear. Great banks of gravel extend along the mar- 
gin of the Jemsek stream : granite boulders are seen 
scattered about the bottom of the lake ; and they are 
found, here and there, far and wide, in the neighbor- 
ing forests of pine and hard wood, which surround 
the lake even to the water’s edge. These great 
boulders in the woods are often covered with wild 
vines, or so matted with fallen leaves as to support a 
fine growth of ferns ; the rocks in some instances 
lifting their altar like tops high among the oaks and 
the walnuts. Numerous islets with bold shores, and 


110 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


shaggy with tall trees, adorn the bosom of the lake ; 
offering a breeding place far from the foxes, — for 
loons, wood ducks, black coots, plover, and grouse.^ 

Several small islands stand in the edge of the St. 
John at the mouth of the Jemsek stream. 

The fertile soil and wild meadow's in the neighbor- 
hood were put to use promptly by La Tour, that they 
might bear a part of the burden of their own defence. 

A trading post was opened. Axes, kettles, flints, 
sabres, sword blades for the heads of darts, twine for 
nets, woollen socks, awls, needles, beads, tobacco, 
much vermilion, and little soap, — were here ex- 
changed for the finest of furs. The currency con- 
sisted in bunching the skins, in dozens or half dozens, 
— of beaver, rarely the white beaver,^ the otter, the 
martin, of squirrels, the ash-colored and the Suisse,^ 
of the raccoon, of weasels and ferrets, of the wild- 
cat, the lynx, the badger, the red fox, of bear skins 
the black and the cinnamon, elk hides, I’enfant du 
diable,^ — and the “ michibichi, a sort of speckled 
tyger,” believed by the most superstitious of the sav- 
ages to have been the incarnation of an evil spirit.® 

The necessity of preparing for war in time of 

^ Adams’ very entertaining Field and Forest Kambles in Eastern 
Canada, London, 1873, gives valuable notes upon the geology of 
the Grand Lake region. 

2 La Honton, 1. 233. 

^ So called from the black and white streaks along the body, 
like a Swiss doublet ; and the black and white rings on the thighs, 
like a Swiss cap. 

4 Mephitis Americana. ® La Honton, I. 232. 


JEMSEK. 


Ill 


peace, led La Tour to visit the heads of the great 
rivers of Acadia, to gather in furs, — the profit being 
enormous, both upon the goods sold to the savages, 
and then again upon the furs received in trade. 

Well might the aborigines be proud of the Ouan- 
gondy, and well might an apostle be glad to have 
his name attached to such a river, with its long 
reaches of navigable water. General La Tour’s boy- 
life in the defiles of the Alps, and the privations of 
his early Acadian manhood, made him indifferent to 
the difficulties of a new country, whether of dan- 
gerous fogs and the storms of Lundy in winter, or the 
inconveniences of Pokiok carry, or adventures upon 
the sides of the gorge below the Grand Falls. Upon 
the sides of this gorge, to please his Indian boatmen, 
he erected, at a point difficult and dangerous of 
access, a monument of rough stones to commemorate 
that unknown Indian maiden of the Malachites, who 
led her captors the Mohawks over the Great Falls in 
the night, when they were moving to attack her people. 

There is no ground for comparing Constance with 
her contemporary, the Marchioness de Eambouillet, 
whose architectural taste and ability revolutionized 
the arrangement of houses, and gave to the Parisian 
world models for the royal improvement of palaces, 
— but this woman of the wilderness knew how to 
build a fort, having schooled herself to some purpose 
in her life at La Eochelle.^ 

1 The Acadian forts had little to distinguish one from another, 
unless in the quality of the work. When completed, — the dwell- 


112 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


While Constance occupied herself in overseeing 
the workmen, Henrietta made wide acquaintance 
with the Indian families, who came to the Grand 
Lake in vast numbers in the summer season to fish 
and to hunt, the game being very plenty in the 
neighborhood of the cooling waters.^ 

Pitchibat, so swift of foot, and so strong of arm, was 
Henrietta’s guide and guard and boatman; as the 
muscular Tarratine Takouchin, the trusty messenger, 
was attached to the service of Constance, — never 
far from her in all wild wanderings. 

Henrietta not only diverted herself by idling 
along the shores of the lake in search for jaspers 
and carnelians, and fossil ferns near the coal beds, 
or pushing out in her light canoe to gather lilies, 
making garlands to dress out her friend the su- 
perintendent of construction at the fort, and to 
adorn all the Indian children whose fathers and 
mothers were engaged in service at the works, — 
but her solitary sail was often seen coursing over 
the lake as she sought out the mouth of Salmon 
Eiver, or new hunting grounds, in bearing her part 
to keep the workmen in flesh, fowl, and fish. The 

ing house at Jemsek was of hewn stone, 30 x 45 ; and the two story- 
magazine of stone, 30 x 108 ; the court of the guard, 30 x 45 ; the 
chapel, 12 X 18, — with a turret, and a hell of 18 lbs. ; under the 
magazine, was a cellar with a weU in it ; the twelve guns were each 
of nearly a ton weight ; outside was a large cattle house, and a 
garden with fruit trees. 

1 Gi-and Lake is famous, even to-day, for the gathering of Indian 
utensils, and relics of far off generations. 


JEMSEK. 113 

shad, the gaspereaux, the savory trout came to her 
net or hook. 

If Jean Pitchibat and the hounds drove a fat buck 
into the water in the neighborhood of the Lynx, 
Henrietta dropped her lines, and stunned the deer 
with her paddle ; and she shrank not from using her 
hunting knife. To contend with the bears for berries, 
to secure now and then a toothsome cub, suited well 
her mettle ; but if nothing better offered, she would 
condescend to conceal herself in the small birches, 
steal along under the aspens, or push the alders one 
side, to get a shot at a partridge, or to bring down a 
bevy of wood pigeons. 

Constance never killed a wild creature for need or 
sport, — it was not in her heart to do it. It was her 
diversion to go away alone, watching, perhaps, the 
humming bird with changeable colors, blue and gold 
and red, glistening in the sun, and moving with nee- 
dle beak from flower to flower with the bees, — or 
she gazed long upon the great eagles wheeling in 
their flight ; she took her little child where the silence 
was broken only by the tap of the woodpecker or the 
whirr of the partridge, — or where they could look 
into deep clear waters watching the fish in their un- 
derworld, — or where they could see the young of 
the innumerable wild fowl, seeking food or at play, 
when surrounded by the stillness of the forest, — or 
they saw the brown sides of doe and fawn timidly 
gliding along some wood path towards the water. 
And when the season came for crimson and orange 
8 


114 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


in the tops of the maples, she adorned her birch 
in gay colors, and floated as if upon an autumnal 
leaf over the smooth bosom of the lake, listening 
to the impressive stillness of the wilderness. The 
Indian children said, that, so, she hoped sometime to 
hear the voice of her God, — or that her Ministering 
Angel would speak to her. She herself believed, 
that the Voice within her soul could best be heard 
when she was alone amid the wilds. 

The shining waters and sunny wildernesses were, 
however, not a little disturbed by the news Joe Ta- 
kouchin brought up from Fort La Tour in the Euro- 
ropean mail, which had just arrived in the yearly 
packet, the Coeur de Lion. 

It now appeared, that Eichelieu, — the conqueror 
of La Eochelle, the master mind of France if not of 
Europe, he who made a toy of kings, — was at the 
bottom of the movements of M. Eazilly and of Char- 
nace; they were his chess men, playing his game in 
New France. Constance had not merely to cope 
with an old time lover in his shifting masks of Jesuit 
missionary and of Second Lord Lieutenant, but must 
now contend with Eichelieu, or lose Acadia.^ 

It now appeared, that Eazilly, who was related to 
Eichelieu, and Charnace, whose uncle, the Baron 
Hercule the great diplomat, married a blood connec- 
tion of Eichelieu, were of the Hundred Associates : 

1 The reference to Eichelieu’s Jesuitical plans in Prince’s An- 
nals, Part II. Sec. 2, page 84, indicates the alarm of the Protestants, 
although their information was not perfect. 


JEMSEK. 


115 


otherwise the Company of New France, at whose 
head stood the Master of the French world ; with 
large capital paid in ; with a grant from the Cardi- 
nal’s tool, the king, of all New France forever, and 
a perpetuity of the monopoly in furs, freedom from 
duty upon all exports, and twelve patents of nobility 
as premiums ; with an obligation to colonize the 
new world with papists, at the least four thousand 
of them at some early date. The Company was to 
be supplied with three ecclesiastics to every set- 
tlement ; no Protestants were to be allowed fur- 
ther foothold, so putting a complete stop to Huguenot 
emigration. 

Here, indeed, was ground for war in Acadia. And 
the blood of Bernon took up the gage. Who could 
tell to whom the Lord of battles would finally give 
this land ? Eichelieu might have other matters in 
Europe, to keep his hands too full to admit of his 
grasping America. His scheme might fail. He had 
humbled La Eochelle ; but might not the prostrate city 
be avenged in New France ? If the Marchioness de 
Guercheville had not been able to bear the draft upon 
her purse, might not the new capitalists so sanguine 
at the outset, soon fall back ? The courtiers might 
risk one pocket full of pin money, but they would 
not continue to put out money for other people to 
spend in far off ventures. 

Some such thoughts as these rushed through the 
mind of practical Constance, as she ran over her 
mail. But Henrietta was boiling over, with ill sup- 


116 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


pressed rage. She hated the Eomanist religion not 
only with the fierceness of an English Protestant, hut 
with the bitter memory of old French refugee wrongs 
that had come down out of a former generation. 
Moreover, her service in the household of King 
Charles, when he espoused the cause of the French 
Protestants at La Pochelle and was defeated by 
Pichelieu, led her to entertain the most violent 
prejudices against the Cardinal, and all his kin upon 
both sides of the sea. At the same time, she had so 
much of the British admiration of pluck and hard 
fighting, that she could not but stand in awe before 
the genius of that clergyman, who, when he once 
undertook to fight, restored the day of miracles, con- 
verting some portion of the sea into land to support 
his artillery, and lifting up the land itself behind La 
Eochelle into great embankments, to starve the gar- 
rison of the impregnable city into submission. 

Henrietta had absolutely no hope for Acadia, if 
Eichelieu had condescended to say that he would 
take possession of it. 

“ This whole business,” she said to Constance, when 
they had opened their dispatches, and read and re- 
read the domestic letters from loved ones beyond 
the ocean, “ reminds me of what I saw this forenoon 
in my hunting. I sighted a deer in the meadow, 
and was about to fire, when I observed two wolves 
skulking in the edge of the forest preparing to make 
an attack. I watched them, as one circled around 
the buck at a distance, then lay down behind him. 


JEMSEK, 


117 


The other wolf then made an open attack ; and when 
the buck turned and fled, the first wolf then rose out 
of the grass, and seized him. M. Eazilly, and Char- 
nace, merely frighten us, in order that Richelieu may 
take us by the throat. Between them, Acadia must 
fall.’’ 

Constance making no reply, but still gazing in- 
tently at the burning cities falling into ashes, in the 
remains of their camp fire, Henrietta resumed in her 
dogmatic fashion: "‘The Man of Sin does not feel 
disposed to die. Such moderate men as meek Me- 
lanchthon, and song-singing, jovial Luther quarrelling 
over theology, and J ohn Calvin sitting up nights to 
keep Geneva from dancing a jig when he was asleep, 
— could never damage the power of the papal 
church much, in its triumphant progress through the 
centuries. That stupid Spanish Cavalier Loyola, — 
who could not read at an age when Calvin had lec- 
tured on civil law to crowds of admirers and had 
formulated those institutes of religion which are the 
bulwark of Protestantism, — was to the very end, as 
at the beginning, a soldier; and between him and 
the soldier Richelieu, who threw away his sword to 
take a bishopric, they have given a new lease of life 
to the world’s old friend, the Man of Sin, whom 
we all thought dead ; and he will go on living for- 
ever.” 

At the termination of this harangue, Constance 
rolled upon the ground in an uncontrollable fit of 
laughter, — more violent for the excitement she had 


118 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


undergone in learning the true causes of the Acadian 
tangle. 

"Henrietta,” she said when she revived, "I am 
astonished. The preaching of the English divines 
was not lost upon you. I, being born a French 
woman, cannot attempt to converse in a style, savor- 
ing of the Puritan conventicles. What you say is as 
good as a sermon. Let me ring the bell and call in 
the savages.” 


THE CARDINAL. 


119 


XV. 


THE CARDINAL. 



’EXT morning Constance did not fail to enlighten 


her amiable and entertaining mother-in-law 
young Henrietta, at breakfast, upon the mysteries of 
French politics, in a style which was complimented, 
as being an admirable model to Milton for a political 
tract, — being more temperate than he commonly 
used and more judicial, but not lacking in fire or 
poetic phrase and imagery. Having undertaken to 
perfect Constance in the use of the English tongue 
Henrietta took pride in her progress. Packets from 
the old world brought to the wilderness not only 
powder and ball to defend the settlers of Acadia, 
and rare goods out of the old world, and the means 
for trafficking, but the writings of John Milton, who 
was just at that time pounding against the gates of 
Prelacy. 

As the morning wore on, Henrietta, who could not 
be easy until she had read all the theology, which 
had come with the bad news in the Coeur de Lion, 
took Chillingworth’s Religion of the Protestants out 
for an airing after being boxed up so long at sea; 
and seated herself under a little cluster of autumnal 


120 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


beeches lighted by the sun. Constance, going out 
not long after with the second part of Don Quixote, 
noticing the warm glow of the clump of low shrub- 
bery and fruit bearing trees where Henrietta was 
seated, drew near, much as she would to a cheery 
camp lire kindled by a torch from the skies in the 
early noontide. The temptation being great to air 
her English in the presence of so kindly and appre- 
ciative a critic, she reverted to the topic of the morn- 
ing, saying to her companion, — 

“I think that your English people make a great 
mistake in regard to Eichelieu. You speak of him 
as an ecolesiastic. Eeally he is so, not more than 
was William of Orange, not so much so as Philip II. 
of Spain. He is a statesman. His robe is an acci- 
dent. Eather he uses it to cloak his designs. The 
Vicar of God is to him less than the King of France. 
It pleases him in his red garment and skull cap, with 
a golden cross gleaming upon his breast, to have a 
sickly and feeble king with just sense enough to do 
what he is told, whom he can take up between his 
thumb and finger, and set at the head of Europe.” 

“You forget Charles I., and particularly our poor 
Scotch Jeems, who was the legitimate father of our 
Kova Scotia,” interrupted Henrietta. 

“ Pardon my seeming disrespect to the Scotch. I 
meant to have excepted Sir William Alexander. Those 
who think well of Kova Scotia of course rank higher 
in my estimation than Louis or even Eichelieu.” 

“Eichelieu certainly deserved well of the world,” 


THE CARDINAL. 


121 


replied the Scotch baronet’s wife, when he cut the 
apron strings that tied Louis to his mother, and drove 
away from court Mary de Medici. And even if lie 
did put a bib and tucker on Louis, and give liim a 
few play-things, he is not much to be blamed for that, 
considering how much of a man he has made out his 
king in the eyes of Europe.” 

“ Eichelieu,” said Constance, “ has done for France 
what the wars of the roses did for England, — killed 
out the feudal system, and given life to the king. If 
I could allow myself to think calmly of my native 
city, — and this I cannot do,” she added in a plaintive 
tone, with tear drops filling her eyes, — “I should say 
that Eichelieu, who knows no more of human pity 
and has no more respect for human life than the 
axe of an executioner, was after all right in what he 
did.” 

“What do you mean ?” asked Henrietta, in a quick 
excited tone. “ You do not mean to uphold him in 
his persecution of the Protestants ? ” 

“ He did not persecute the Protestants, if you will 
pardon me,” replied Constance. “He could not, 
upon his theory of destroying feudalism and creating 
an absolute monarchy, do otherwise than he did. 
Henry IV. made one mistake in the edict of Hantes, 
— he left my Huguenot people as a political party, 
who should be heard as a party, in governing France. 
It would have been better, if he had merely given 'ab- 
solute religious toleration, and protected it. It would 
have allayed prejudice, and have helped spread the 


122 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


Protestant faith. The result of the course he took was 
to make the Protestant political leaders ambitious of 
controlling the nation. And after the King was mur- 
dered, my native city” — and here her voice trembled, 
and she almost broke down again — “proposed the 
establishment of a Protestant republic. The Due de 
Eohan was opposed to it at first ; but afterwards he 
favored it, and headed the movement. You know, by 
your father’s house, what evils had been wrought by 
the long religious wars. There was no France ; it was 
Gaul again, — barbaric tribes contending, some reli- 
gious, some not. At this juncture Eichelieu appeared ; 
he happened to have been a soldier, a bishop, and a 
cardinal, — but he was really at heart one of the very 
few born kings, as much so as Caesar, or Charlemagne, 
or your Alfred, or William the Korman. But he is a 
king not for himself, he is true to his priestly vows ; 
he glorifies the Church by setting up one and pulling 
down another. Hildebrand is the only Pope worthy 
of being named upon the same day with Eichelieu.” 

“ But did he not destroy your churches ? ” asked 
Henrietta. 

“ I cannot, my dear, speak of what he did,” replied 
Constance in a subdued voice. “ He contended against 
us for political, not for religious reasons. The throne 
was to be established. It is not time yet for a republic 
in France. The department of Aunis was fit for it, 
perhaps Languedoc ; but France would ha ve been 
dismembered in this way. And France as a whole 
is not intelligent enough, or religious enough to be a 


THE CARDINAL. 


123 


republic. Eichelieu has now consolidated a nation out 
of a few feudalities ; he has ruined the aristocracy, and 
reduced the parliaments to insignificance. Now we 
shall see France at the head of Continental Europe.” 

“I admit,” answered Henrietta, ‘'that a kingdom 
absolute, is better than anarchy. And, if freedom of 
thinking and religious liberty were possible under an 
absolute government, there might be hope sometime 
for such religious and civil growth that the govern- 
ment itself might safely be controlled more or less by 
the people. Our English nation, I confess, is almost 
tired of such kings as we have. If I should breathe 
the free air of Acadia long enough, I should become 
a republican, or have a king that would rule just as 
I might fancy.” 

“ In respect to France,” said Constance, “ we never 
had even the beginnings of liberty which your Saxons 
fished up out of the foggy seas of the north ; we have 
for ages been under the thumb of the Pope, or of 
some king, or some feudal lord true to the imperial 
traditions of Eome. The liberty of the strongest is 
all the liberty we have in France. And just now 
Eichelieu is the strongest.” 

And so they talked, these Acadian women, viewing 
the great events of far off nations through the clear 
sky of the new world, — talked until the fires in 
the autumnal woods grew dim with coming twilight. 
The effect of this new move to plant papal power in 
America, by the Hundred Associates of Morbihan, 
was discussed in every light. 


124 


CONST^ANCE OF ACADIA. 


“ Is it not a fundamental error/’ asked Constance, 
“one likely to be fatal to their whole scheme, to 
attempt to plant colonies in New France upon the 
feudal system, which Eichelieu is now trying to 
uproot in Old France ? They have not made it an 
object to the common peoj^le to emigrate. Nobody 
is to be benefited except the Hundred Associates.” 

“I should have thought,” said Henrietta, “that 
they might at least have made a hundred and fifty 
noblemen as our King did, instead of twelve. That 
might have induced somebody to emigrate. I doubt 
if we see any able Frenchmen coming to Acadia in 
addition to M. Eazilly, and — shall I call him Lieu- 
tenant General ? — Charnace. On the other hand, 
there will be a good many Scotch and English people 
in want of nobility patents, and land grants, who will 
come over.” ^ 

“What is needed,” answered Constance, “is the 
plan adopted by the New Englanders, — to give every 
settler a fair footing. The Hundred can never hire 
colonists ; and they do not want hona fide settlers. 
The fur business would be destroyed by the general 
settlement of the country. Charnacd would rather 
have paying beavers than pauper colonists. A few 
farmers to raise food for the trappers, is all that the 
Hundred will send over. There are few in France 
who can even be hired to migrate. The Huguenots 

1 Claude la Tour’s baronetcy was of a new order of Nova 
Scotia nobility ; one hundred and fifty being created for the sake of 
settling the country with those ambitious of titles. 


THE CARDINAL. 


125 


are really the only ones who wish to pack up and move 
to Acadia. The Catholics do not want to come ; and 
they will not, except as hired help, or as priests.” 

“ But Eichelieu has put a stop to Protestant emi- 
gration,” interposed Henrietta. 

“He cannot do that,” was the reply. “The Hugue- 
not merchants, in their armed ships will glide in and 
out everywhere. They are as persistent as if they 
were smugglers and pirates. They make money by 
their wits. The Protestant population of Biscay will 
not ask the Hundred where they may go or not go.” 

At this point, Henrietta could no longer refrain 
from yawning, — which she did with an apology. 
The defenders of Acadia, then, roasted their green 
corn at the evening camp fire ; toasted their feet ; 
and told surprising stories of old-time hunters and 
warriors of former ages, and of those devout men who 
had been engaged in holy missions among the barbaric 
tribes of Europe. , 


126 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


XVL 

THE ACADIAN WILD. 

J EMSEK was a more comfortable place to winter 
in than Fort La Tour, more sunny, and less ex- 
posed to the eccentricities of the Atlantic. In com- 
pleting the works, General La Tour was there most 
of the cold season, passing often up and down the ice 
clad river, according to the exigencies of his building 
and his trafi&c. Constance, when at liberty to do so, 
busied herself throughout the winter in ministering 
to the Malechites, in which the wife of the Senior 
La Tour gave occasional aid. 

Besides families not a few, who had regular huts 
and formed little villages upon the lake shore, or 
near the junction of considerable streams, there were 
great numbers, who wintered near the lake with its 
stores of fish ; it being a region somewhat famous for 
the number of moose yards within reach by one or 
two days journey upon snow shoes. 

Those camping or unsettled Indians, — who spent 
a winter here then there, who moved with moving 
game, who had different resorts for seasons dry or 
wet, whose movements were directed by feuds or by 
war, — lived in temporary lodges rather than in huts 


TEE ACADIAN WILD, 


127 


and stockaded villages. A lodge could be set up in 
a new place within half an hour ; a few poles were 
placed upright, and tied together at the top, then 
covered with mats or more commonly with bark ; a 
parapet of snow was then gathered upon the outside 
for a windbreak ; and pine branches or tips of fir 
served as a mattress, over which skins were then 
thrown for bedding, — and this completed the house 
or home. The smoke which gathered in the top of 
the lodge, little by little found its way out of the 
interstices of the bark covering, after having first 
imparted all the heat possible to the smothering 
inmates. 

In severe weather the falling snow was so thick as 
to darken the day ; or the clear north wind so full of 
force as to split the forest trees, and so full of frost 
as to peel the skin off a white face. Upon such days, 
it was, within the lodge, only possible for the inmates 
to freeze one side and roast the other ; impossible to 
see through the smoke more than half a yard ; pos- 
sible only in such smoke to weep their eyes away, 
else perish with cold by opening the roof. Some- 
times they could breathe only by placing their nos- 
trils near the ground. Such rough weather, however, 
offered her best days to Constance, since she was sure 
of finding the entire family or families in a lodge at 
home, with nothing to do but to keep the smoke alive, 
and to hear anything she might have to suggest. To 
conduct devotional exercises under the circumstances 
might have been difficult; still it was possible, — 


128 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


Constance rememfbering that the dwellers in the 
lodge had always been used to such atmosphere, that 
they at least were at home, the only home they had 
ever known. 

The Indians bathed daily in summer, but never 
in winter; they rubbed their bodies occasionally in 
bear’s oil, but never changed their clothing. Heat- 
ing, and steaming in the smoking lodge, they were 
still at home. There was nothing in the atmos- 
phere to which they had not been accustomed all 
their lives. 

These Indians kept vast numbers of fierce hunting 
dogs, which were fed little save in the chase ; starv- 
ing in winter, they crawled into the lodges, snatching 
food from any hand they could catch unguarded ; hav- 
ing shivered outside, they approached as near as they 
could to the inside smoke. A coverlet of two or 
three dogs lying upon one’s person, was likely to be 
found by any one sleeping in these kennels.^ 

It was with such surroundings, that Constance of 
Acadia, — whose father and grandfather by their money 
helped Henry of the White Plume to the throne of 
France, whose family records had given prelates to 
the church during more than seven hundred years, 
whose ancestors during all that time had been in high 
positions of trust military and municipal conveying 
a title of nobility, who was a descendant of the 
counts of Burgundy — patiently devoted herself to 

1 Charlevoix Journals, pp. 129-131. 

2 A. D. 895. 


THE ACADIAN WILD. 


129 


the religious instruction of warriors and squaws 
and their children, day after day during those very 
winter months in which Eichelieu travelled like a 
king, with a long retinue of horsemen, of coaches, 
of wagons, with vocal and instrumental music, or 
gave elaborate and costly entertainments to richly 
dressed courtiers, — Eichelieu, who, when of the 
same age with Constance, wrote to Madame de 
Bourges, that, as the poor bishop of LuQon, he had 
no garden or avenue where he could walk, that he 
had the muddiest bishoiDric in France, and that he 
could find no lodging without a smoky chimney. 

As a practical lesson to her wild neighbors, Con- 
stance lived among them, in a lodge ; so arranging it 
by what wit she had, as to show them how to be 
more comfortable as well as more cleanly. Without 
other conveniences than every Indian household could 
easily obtain, she had prepared in the deep snow a 
pit, sinking to the leafy covering of the ground, and 
here prepared her bed of fir-tip feathers laid thatch- 
wise ; and in that region which, of all places in Aca- 
dia, offered stone in abundance and limerock, she had 
a rough chimney ; and she could be seen any day 
frizzling her meat upon sharpened forks of oak, sur- 
rounded by the children of the nearest lodges. Henri- 
etta now and then kept her company ; and Takouchin 
and his family wintered in a lodge close at hand. 

In this Sunday lodge, as it was called, she had 
little companies all day long once a week ; when she 
learned by some system what had been accomplished 
9 


130 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


by the habits of industry she had inculcated, and in 
aid of which she had suggested practicable methods, — 
the work upon the fortifications employing any who 
could really make themselves useful, and the making 
of pipe staves for shipment employing any who cared 
to undertake it. The Indians were found to be good 
imitators, and they easily learned to make many ar- 
ticles of domestic convenience. Providence for the 
future was a matter of inquiry. Information was 
given as to sickness ; which tended to break up the 
superstitious courses often followed upon such occa- 
sion. The laws of kindness, of gratitude, of courtesy, 
of cleanliness, of purity, of uprightness, were made 
clear by simple illustrations, and enforced by appeal- 
ing to conscience, and the authority of God. Practi- 
cal precepts were committed to their faithful memories. 
They were taught to be alone with God, seeking help 
from heaven. And before the winter was over, Con- 
stance saw many, who could endure torture without 
a tear, weep when worsted in an attempt at self 
conquest. 

That her words, in respect to being alone with God 
were not meaningless, came to be understood by her 
people ; and they learned not to look for her, or disturb 
her hours upon a Saturday, when often she was quiet 
in her lodge ; or sometimes went away into wild nooks 
of the forest in suiiny weather, her faithful Joe busy- 
ing himself with his basket-making wherever his mis- 
tress might indicate. Clad in the squirrel-skin clothing 
given her by the Souriquois maidens, she felt the cold 


TEE ACADIAN WILD. 


131 


as little out of doors in ordinary winter weather as a 
fox or an elk. A friendly log, which her woodsman 
could easily provide, with a few branches of hemlock, 
together with such skins as Joe took with him, made 
it easy to bivouac wherever the fancy of the day 
might determine. So was she shut within the wil- 
derness, like some woman who had taken vows upon 
her, and entered into her cell in some storied cloister. 
Under the solemn pines in the silent north-land, no 
solitude could be more perfect. 

Constance had no such rhapsodies as marked the 
spiritual experiences of Marie de 1’ Incarnation; but 
there were sober words written of old time, which 
indicated God’s friendliness and the promise of his 
abiding, — and these had great weight with her. The 
bitterness of her early years, — for she saw it now to 
have been more bitter than she once confessed even 
to herself, — in what was really a disappointment, — in 
the choice made by Charnace, which left her no other 
choice than to cleave fast to the God of her youth, — 
had upon her the effect to throw her back upon Him, 
and to form with Him that “ mystical union ” which 
the theologians of former ages dwelt upon so much, — 
whatever this might mean when subject to analysis. 
To Constance it meant, the possibility of communion 
with God as her Friend, — and that was enough. 

She saw no visions, but she had the implicit faitli 
of Joan of Arc; and in the great solitudes of a new 
world she carried to God all her sorrows, aH her 
hopes, all her purposes. 


132 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


It can hardly be a wonder, that there were days 
when her heart was empty in the unpitying wilder- 
ness. If so, she must have had deep spiritual sym- 
pathy with the most devoted men of the Order of 
Jesus, who during so many years moved in their holy 
mission across the monotonous and desolate land in 
winter ; who sometimes said, that this vast continent, 
in tliose grim ages when Acadia was first visited by 
Constance, — so inhospitable, so rude, so rank in its 
wildernesses, so peopled with devils, — was but an 
outskirt of the world of woe. 

She could not easily get so far from the scene of 
her daily service, as to forget to lift up her heart to 
Him, to whom all flesh came, praying for the savages, 
so easily mistaken for devils, — and for all who were 
ignorant and out of the way. 

One still night, when she was alone, gliding over 
the smooth surface of the lake before the depth of 
snow hindered such recreation, as she had been pray- 
ing for her own home, for her little child, — her 
mother-eyes saw afar off, with that forecasting vision 
which reads or seeks to read the record of predes- 
tined years. Just then a brilliant meteor rushed in 
splendor just above the lake, as it seemed to her, — 
falling in the forest upon the south. It made sucli 
an impression upon the mind of Constance, that she 
spoke of it to Madame Gibones upon her second 
visit to Boston, just before she was cut off in the early 
bloom of her unfolding life. 

If Constance kept up a brave heart before her hus- 


THE ACADIAN WILD. 


133 


band and Henrietta, in relation to Eicbelieu and his 
Acadian plans, she did not hesitate to make known 
; to God all her fears. She prayed, that He would 
withhold from the wise and crafty the wisdom needed 
to people America with colonists opposed to freedom 
of thought and worship; and that there might come to 
the coast such men — even if Englishmen — as Crom- 
well and Hampden, who had been mentioned in the 
recent mail as having recently actually embarked for 
the new world but temporarily detained. She could 
not hold her heart back from praying for some of the 
ancient houses of her own native city, that those able 
men might come to America, — and she prayed that 
God would so guide the feet of her little brother, who 
alone remained of her father’s house. 

February was spent by Constance near the mouth 
of the Salmon river. It was the last Saturday in the 
month. She was perhaps not a little worn with her 
steadfast devotion to her mission, and not a little dis- 
turbed by reports brought from the Penobscot by Jean 
Pitchibat. The crust upon the snow favoring a longer 
excursion than common, she went some distance from 
the lake, beyond the first range of hills westerly. The 
tingling sensation of out door life in bracing winter 
weather, when contrasted with the long hours she had 
made with the Malechite children for many days pre- 
ceding, led her further than she had first planned. It 
was not until she had found a sheltered spot upon the 
top of a low hill without prospect, among thickets of 
young hemlocks, and Joe had kindled a fire for her 


134 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


under the naked limbs of a great oak, crooked, gaunt, 
chilled by the winter winds, — that she became sen- 
sible how cold it was. 

Fog and frost had covered the entire forest with 
silver, or spangles of crystal ; and the glory of the 
sun, reflected from every reed and shrub, from the 
fir-trees commonly so dark against the winter sky, 
and from the fine outlines of the maple and the ash 
as if they had blossomed with diamonds, — Had led 
Constance far, in a clear cold day when the sun had 
lost his fire. 

Soon after noon, when this woman in the wilder- 
ness had craved God’s blessing upon her little parched 
corn, the sun was obscured, the skies became heavy, 
the clouds thickened, and the horizon was dark. A 
storm was gathering ; and the wind began to moan. 

It is not certain that Constance was peculiarly 
sensitive to the conditions of the outer world, as 
some are whose natures are strongly sympathetic. 
Be that as it may, the thought was forced upon her, 
as she quickened her returning steps, that as the 
morning with its glitter of hundreds of square leagues 
of jewels had gone by forever, she had now in her 
own life nothing to which to look forward but a 
gathering storm and sunset. 

All the morning her mind had been running 
over the happy days of her childhood, and dawning 
womanhood. Until she was twenty -three years old 
she had loved, perhaps foolishly but fondly, one 
whom she refused to marry partly out of respect 


THE ACADIAN WILD, 


135 


to Paul, and partly out of fear of Loyola. And 
ever since then, she had idealized the man, think- 
ing him without fault save in the excess of his devo- 
tion to what she believed to be a spiritually misleading 
religious system. But now it was apparent that her 
child friend was dead, — that Charnace was not the 
same man with Charles of La Eochelle. Since she 
saw him, he had developed what was in him. He 
had become an intriguer, scheming always for the 
mastery; following blindly — as she believed — the 
inspiration of his Superior, — and just now the in- 
spiration of Eichelieu. 

Was this the cloud obscuring the sun? It was 
not. She did not, she would not believe eyes or 
ears ; she woruld beEeve her own heart. Her heart 
told her that Charles of La Eochelle had not changed. 
It had forced itself upon her, as she walked through 
the glittering avenue of the palace of jewels; and 
now again as she went home — if her lodge was her 
home — when the jewels were falling under the sad 
fingering of the wind, which snapped the twigs and 
made havoc with the beautiful world, — it was forced 
upon her that Charnac^ the man had not changed. 
He was too noble. She believed that he was heartily 
sick of the Jesuits, and a disbeliever in the system, 
swinging back to the faith of his mother. 

"What if?” And she moaned aloud, loudly like 
the moaning wind, when she said that. She looked 
around to see whether Joe was too near, and had 
overheard her thinking aloud. No, he was not in 


136 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


sight; but his flog was, — just in advance of his 
master. 

“ What if ? ” And she stayed her steps ; she was 
getting too near the Indian village. Constance told 
Joe to go forward, and prepare her dinner ; and she 
waited in the gathering gloom of the starless night. 
She knew Charnacd too well. No man she had ever 
met was so domestic as he in his tastes and habits, 
or in his heart. He desired most of all a home. He 
loved to have fine things about him. He would snatch 
at his present opportunity to pluck up wealth by the 
hands of Briareus, the Hundred Associates, — and then 
he would have a home. Jean’s words had disturbed 
her. “ What if ? ” And she almost shrieked with 
terror, as the thought flashed upon her mind, and 
stood in illumination, as if written upon the dark 
sky in words of fire. “What if his heart is not 
still ? what if he was not satisfied when he decided 
to cling to the papacy and the Jesuits instead of 
marrying me ? He acted from a mistaken sense of 
religious duty. What if he has now found out his 
mistake? He wanted to marry me, he protested, 
because he loved me. If he has discovered his 
mistake in uniting himself to the Jesuits, his love 
for me will certainly rise supreme, and control every 
act of his life. 

“His iron will has been schooled for years by a 
different standard of right and wrong than that of 
God’s Word. He believes that the end sanctifies the 
means. He gets it from his church, which he be- 


THE ACADIAN WILD. 


137 


lieves to be infallible, and inspired of God, so stand- 
ing to him as the very word of the living God. He 
is made ready by his very piety to do wrong for the 
greater glory of God. He will shield himself behind 
the order of his Superior, and go forward. How far 
will he go ? ” 

She paused a moment, as if, by so doing and look- 
ing with fixed eyes, she could discern how far Char- 
nace would go, — in grasping for his Associates, in 
tearing up Protestantism for his Superior, and in 
giving definite form to the sentiments of his own 
heart toward her. Then she spoke in a low tone, 
as if her Angel might listen to her, asking, — 

“ Is there anything in this world so much like hell 
as a confusion of one’s sense of right ? Are not men 
led by it into the worst of ways, dreaming that they 
are in the divine paths ? They will act like demons ; 
and when they become conscious of what they have 
done, they will wail, as if in the world of woe. Char- 
nacd will go straight forward, and from his wrong 
sense of what is idght he will act like the worst of 
men. And he will not pause till the evil is done. 
Then he will reflect. He will curse the Society of 
Jesus. He will curse the Pope and all his angels. 
And he will yearn with unspeakable longing for the 
simple faith of his mother. And he will long for 
me, — when I am dead. May God shield my hus- 
band, and my child.” 

The gulf was before her. She had looked into it. 
Constance then calmed herself. Kneeling upon the 


138 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


snow, overlooking not the frozen lake but a great 
shoreless sea of darkness, darkness that could be 
felt, she prayed : — “ May we never meet. But be- 
fore I die, permit me to direct his soul to Thee, Thou 
Friend of the friendless. Thou Bride of every longing 
heart.” 


RODERIOO PALLADIO. 


139 


XYII. 


RODEEIGO PALLADIO. 



^HE Jesuit by whom Charuace was taught when 


he was a lad and youth, Eoderigo Palladio, 
brought to his work not only the beautiful spirit of 
his accomplished and devout Hispano-Italico mother, 
but her singular beauty. Of the corps of carefully 
selected young teachers sent to La Rochelle by the 
Jesuits upon their restoration to France early in the 
seventeenth century, after their brief dispersion, he 
was the only one who kept his footing in the great 
Protestant strong hold. 

Charnac4 must indeed have been an idiot not to 
have loved him, when he had once thoroughly made 
his acquaintance. Palladio’s mother had been startled 
by the increasing power of the reformed religion, 
which threatened strongly to take from France the 
proud title — “the eldest son of the Church.” She 
had no hope, save in giving the world over to the 
Society of J esus ; which seemed to her, — in her 
extended studies in the history and theology of the 
Church and of the controversial treatises of the Refor- 
mation, to which, under the guidance of her confessor 
Fra Camaxo, she had access at her house in Lyons 
by giving shelter to the library of the Jesuit college 


140 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


during fhe dispersion of the Order, — to furnish the 
organization best fitted to stay the defection in the 
Catholic Church, which plainly needed reformation, 
but not destruction. 

She was confident of a long and honored career for 
the Church of God already hoar with ages, if, at this 
crisis in her history, the most devoted of her sons 
could be marshalled as one man, and placed under 
intelligent direction. Loyola would not have lived 
in vain, if his work had won for him no other ad- 
mirer than this intelligent and godly woman Mad- 
ame Jaqueline Palladio,^ who was attracted to it first 
of all as a work of consummate art, as she had been 
by the Moses of Angelo, the Last Judgment, or the 
dome of St. Peter’s. 

What could be more sublime than the conception 
of bringing the entire body of the Church into a per- 
fect state of purity, of unselfish handling of all earthly 
goods, and of obedience even in thought to the repre- 
sentative of the Highest, that the earth might so 
resemble heaven ? If the holy Catholic Church offered 
the only way of salvation, the Order of Jesuits offered 
the only way of saving the Church when assaulted 
by the powers of darkness ; and this Society of the 
devoted followers of Jesus was deserving not only of 
her own confidence, but with sincere devotion she 
gave to the Order her onty son. 

The beautiful boy, with his heart full of his 

1 The young widow of Palladio of Vicenza, whose genius did so 
much to adorn the Italian cities. 


RODERIGO PALLADIO, 


141 


motheys tenderness, was dedicated to this service, as 
lier holiest offering to God. The little child was 
taught to look upon the Church as his mother, as the 
child Jesus looked to Mary. And he was taught by 
his own mother’s lips, in all his growing years, that 
his espousals were due to the Church the bride of 
Christ, that — in such sphere as he might fill — he 
should be like the Vicar of God upon the earth, by 
choosing the Church as his companion in life, seeking 
a celestial union rather than an earthly marriage. 

How strange the outcome, — this woman Jaqueline, 
of Lyons, in this way, stole away the son of Marthe 
de Menou of La Kochelle, and hindered his marriage 
with Constance, and embroiled New France in civil 
war. 

It was impossible to discern what the end would be. 
The Society of Jesus, seeking to save the Church, was 
like the ark which took into it things clean and un- 
clean. If every Jesuit in the Order had been like 
Eoderigo Palladio, the name of Charnace would have 
stood high upon the roll of missionaries, perhaps 
consecrating the soil of some far off land with his 
martyr blood. 

But. it was found to be practically impossible, in 
the working of the Society, to achieve success without 
the leadership of men of pronounced individuality j 
men not always pliant, not easily moved about by 
kings or popes, or even by such kindly criticism by 
inferiors as no theory could avail to suppress. And 
the manifest success of the Order, advancing to the 


142 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


highest places of the world, led able men very imper- 
fectly sanctified to take vows, and by their surpassing 
ability to reach the highest positions of trust. 

The system as such had so little power to clear it- 
self of the worst of men, that civilized nations found 
it practically impossible to protect themselves, save 
by clearing themselves of the Order itself. 

If all members had been filled with that unselfish 
love which characterized the best, the Society and 
the world would have reaped the best fruits pos- 
sible to be reached under this system; whose fun- 
damental theory required' the members “ to vanquish 
and subdue the loftiest and most difficult part of 
themselves, their will and judgment,” and '^to per- 
form the order, let it be what it may, of the Superior, 
with a certain blind impulse of an eager will, wliich 
will bear them forward without giving space for 
inquiry.” ^ Is it not related, that the Abbot John 
inquired not whether what he was ordered to do was 
useful or not ; but continued daily, throughout a year, 
to water the dead stump of a tree ” ? ^ 

Certainly no conception can be more sublime than 
that which the founder of the Order saw, when he 
would utterly destroy the individuality of every man, 
and create, from them all, one vast personality fitted 
to be the bride of Christ upon the earth, — actuated 
solely by the infallible Vicar of God: “the lowest 
ranks being controlled by means of those next 
above them, and these by the higher; one move- 

1 Loyola’s Letter on Obedience (Taylor’s trans.). ^ idem. 


RODERIGO PALLADIO. 143 

meiit originating at the centre being communicated 
to the extremities.”^ 

It is no wonder that this system fitted men for a 
certain kind of power. The world had need not only 
of men efficient by nature, hut trained for special 
service. They were so laborious, so persevering that 
they found a place. This system, moreover, had the 
unequalled advantage of being able at any moment to 
command the implicit obedience, for any service, of a 
great body of men throughout the world ; as if the 
globe had been a great monastery, in which the eye 
of the General controlled the action of every man. 

It is easy to see that the ablest members of the 
Order always construed the rules, so as to allow — to 
themselves at least — all needed freedom of action ; 
and men of warm hearts and glowing love were will- 
ing to give their lives to a system, which tended to 
reduce the whole religious world to mere mechanism. 

When, therefore, Eoderigo Palladio devoted his en- 
tire time, not to instruction alone, but to obtaining 
the control of the affections and the conscience of 
Charles de Menou, Sieur Hilaire Charnac^, of ten years 
old, it was with the love of a mother — represent- 
ing the motherhood of the Church — to a motherless 
boy. And the teacher was so imbued with the spirit 
of religion, and of the Order of which he was a vital 
part, that he filled the child's mind with the most 
surpassing ambition to be of use to God and man, in 
the Catholic Church and in the Society of Jesus. 


1 Letter on Obedience. 


144 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


It was indeed many years before the child of Pro- 
testant parents who was beloved of Constance, could 
be brought by insensible steps to cut off all tender 
ties, and devote himself to God as a Jesuit. With 
scarcely perceptible motion he was led far, before he 
perceived, as a growing lad, that he had gradually, 
irrevocably, made great advance in a new religious 
pathway. 

When he finally left the home of his youth, it 
seemed to him reasonable that he should not begin 
all over again to decide the great religious problems 
of the world; that Constance must be in serious 
error, if she should undertake to settle all things for 
herself, aided only by her reason and the interpreta- 
tion which she personally put upon what she called 
God’s Word, — and in still worse error if she should 
not think for herself, but take the interpretation of 
John Calvin, the Protestant pope. 

It seemed to him far wiser, as a young man, to 
submit his intellect, his judgment, to the authority of 
the Church, which alone — by all the wisdom of ages 
and as the infallible holder of the keys of earth and 
heaven — could rightly interpret the ancient Scrip- 
tures. Uncertain for himself, as to what was right, 
he threw himself back upon the Chair of St. Peter ; 
and allowed Urban VIII. to reign in his own heart as 
the authorized Vicar of God, — that is, so far as he 
might be allowed to do so by any special restrictions 
and counter orders issued from time to time by the 
General of the Society of Jesus. 


EICEELIEU^S ECHO. 


145 


XVIII. 

RICHELIEU’S ECHO. 

W HEX Charles of La Rochelle entered the St. 

Pol de Leon, he came in contact with teachers 
less self-denying, less devout, less modest, less amiable, 
less attractive, less keen, than the peerless Palladio ; 
they were men of greater personal ambition, more 
selfish aims, — and some of them were corrupt and 
unscrupulous, illustrating in their own lives that doc- 
trine of devils, that the end sanctifies the means. 

It is not to be wondered at, if in the age of Riche- 
lieu there were bad men in the Papal Church. Who 
can tell when the night of the dark ages passed away 
from every hamlet in France ? The spirit of private 
lawless tyranny, ruling by the right arm, had not yet 
died out of many men of surprising vigor ; the Papal 
Church still had preferment for able men of this 
stamp. 

It was hard to decide what was right. The stand- 
ards were doubtful. For ages the Church had for- 
bidden men to think ; had invoked the secular power 
to burn for the variation of a shade of thought, upon 
abstruse doctrines not affecting morality between man 
and man. The religious wars of France had divided 
10 


146 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


kinsfolk and cloven in twain many a domestic hearth. 
The reformed churches were contending among them- 
selves, and some were fighting against civil authority. 
Many conservative men of well ordered lives thought 
it the only safe course to adhere to the Vicar of God 
and his dictum ; and, if it were of evil, to trust that 
God would accept their right intent. So, multitudes 
of obscure devout persons were fed with meat out of 
heaven, borne to them by unclean ravens. 

Charnace, as he began now to style himself, with 
all his manly ambitions to be of service, met spirit- 
ual guides most crafty and ungodly among those who 
obtained great influence over him in the Jesuit Col- 
lege in Paris. Before he was conscious of what he 
was doing, his vows of obedience had made him a 
party to transactions, which were commonly thought 
to be right by the circle in which he moved; but 
which could never be squared by the side of the 
written Word of God, — the Word of God being of no 
effect by the traditions of men. Under these cir- 
cumstances his conscience was warped; the light 
that was in him became darkness, and great was 
that darkness. 

His local knowledge of La Eochelle was of use to 
Kichelieu ; the knowledge of the fur business and of 
Acadia, which he had picked up in his native city, 
greatly interested Eichelieu, that man of universal 
genius. The magnetism of him, who had now achieved 
what the kings of Prance had tried for, during five 
hundred years, in unifying the nation, told wonder- 


RICHELIEU'S ECHO. 147 

fully upon Charnac4 ; as it could not fail to do upon 
all who were not mere hare-brained courtiers. 

“The universal spider,” Louis XL, whose prodigious 
nose indicated the soundest practical judgment in 
affairs, had never been able to spin the web he 
dreamed of, upon which he was to stand in the centre 
and be connected by direct lines with all France : 
Eichelieu in his Cardinal robe had accomplished it 
for Louis XIII., — perhaps in part by very virtue of 
his ecclesiastical office, which won for him the co- 
operation of the religious forces of the nation. A 
peer of the parliament of Paris, a duke, rich as a 
king, making most costly presents to a king who did 
not think himself belittled to take them, — here in 
reality was an ecclesiastic who fulfilled the promises 
which Palladio had held out to Charnac^, that the 
kingdoms of the world belonged to God, and that 
the Church ought to rule. 

It was a tempting offer made to young Charnac^, 
whose clearheadedness in business matters had at- 
tracted attention, and whose ability was matched 
only by his docility and readiness to serve, — when 
it was proposed to give him a share in the Company 
of Xew France, to the organization of which he had 
so largely contributed by his masterly presentation 
of the ways and means of reaching great results 
in commercial gains, which would amply justify the 
risk, and which would be certain to open new fields 
rich for spiritual harvest among pagan peoples, and 
a new area for the extension of the Church by 


148 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


emigration to a land otherwise likely to be seized by 
Huguenots. 

Henceforth the lad, the youth, the young mau, 
was no longer such, — he was a man, trusted, honored, 
capable of fulfilling the trust and sustaining the 
honor. Charnace henceforth was an integer in the 
State. A nation had grown up under the magician 
Eichelieu, and the boy from' La Eochelle had now 
an opportunity to show his patriotism. He had a 
country to serve. He stood for Acadia in the nation. 
This great province of New France was his govern- 
ment ; or soon would be so, wholly. La Tour could 
not stand in the way of the kingdom of God. The 
great machine would crush La Tour. 

So it came to pass that Eichelieu had an echo in 
the Maine woods; the new continent rising out of 
the sea, a mere resounding surface for the voice of 
that feeble bodied priest whose intellect ruled no 
small part of the world. 

The only real difficulty in the way of carrying 
to completion the plans formed was, that the Jesuits 
forgot to take out Charnac4’s heart, — when they set 
him afloat upon a western sea. They did not dream 
that Constance was in Acadia, a rival of the Papal 
Church and even of Eichelieu. 

The Hundred Associates, nominally represented by 
M. Eazilly as first on account of the money he was 
able to secure for the enterprise, looked to Charnace 
as the responsible head, as he really became by Gov- 
ernor Eazilly’s death; and, although the Hundred 


RICEELIEU^S ECHO. 


149 


had no occasion to seek a present quarrel with La 
Tour, whom they had found first in the field and 
entrenched in the good graces of the King, it was 
understood that having gained the King’s assent to a 
division of the territory of which La Tour had held 
the monopoly of trade and government, they would 
press the matter of removing him altogether, as soon 
as occasion might be found. 

The General of the Jesuits was peremptory in his 
order to seek early occasion to quarrel with La Tour, 
who had been trained as a Protestant, who was a 
Protestant, and who could not be counted upon for 
any service to the Church, even if he should profess 
Catholicism, as he did in applying for a land grant 
at the mouth of the St. John. The contest once 
opened, the Jesuits had access to the conscience of 
the King ; and Kichelieu would be governed by his 
interest, which would be promoted by the fall of La 
Tour, and by a monopoly for the Hundred. 

As Charnace had inherited from his mother schol- 
arly habits, his father’s character was perpetuated in 
fine mercantile traits. The merchant, the trader, was 
strong in him, when he came to man’s estate. And 
side by side with his spirit of obedience, there was 
the love of power. Money would give influence ; 
influence would give political preferment; political 
preferment would glorify God in His Church. 

The contemporary New England historians say that 
his revenue was from four to five thousand pounds 
sterling per annum from the Penobscot, of which he 


150 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


practically took possession soon after his mission was 
seated at Pentagotiet. General La Tour might very 
well have quarrelled with his rival on this account, 
but he believed in making money by peace rather 
than by war ; and chose to develop the trade of the 
St. John basin to its utmost capacity, and abide his 
time for the repossession of Pentagotiet, which un- 
questionably belonged to him whether the trade 
of the Penobscot did or not. The ground for quar- 
rel as to Port Eoyal and La Heve has been al- 
luded to. 

The building of the fort at Jemsek so exasperated 
Charnac4 as to hasten the crisis. It was unquestion- 
ably the intention of the King in giving La Tour the 
mouth of the Ouangondy to give him control of the 
fur trade of the river. And the subdivision between 
Charnace and La Tour made by the King, certainly 
gave La Tour the bulk of the St. John trade. Still 
there is a strong probability, although it is not alluded 
to by any of the historians who have treated of the 
period, that Jemsek was built upon land nominally 
within the precinct of Charnac4. However that may 
have been, Jemsek controlled the situation. The 
clever La Tour had long known the resources of this 
rich basin ; and he would part with all other rights 
in Acadia rather than lose it. And he cunningly 
moved in season to hold it, as soon as it was evident 
to him that there was to be a conflict. 

The St. John trade handled more than three thou- 
sand skins annually, at a profit of from one hundred to 


RICHELlEU^S ECHO. 


151 


one hundred and fifty thousand livres.^ In a question 
of lives or livres, the public sentiment of the Hundred, 
of the courtiers, of Eichelieu, and of the ecclesiastics 
interested, would not bear out Charnace in sparing 
the lives and losing the livres. It was an age in 
which highway robbery was common. 

It was brought home to Charnac4 that since he 
had himself made the representations of profit, which 
had led to the formation of the company, he could 
not safely stand by, and see La Tour, by controlling 
Jemsek, defy them all, and sweep in an annual profit 
equal to from thirty-three to fifty per cent upon the 
entire cash capital of the Associates. 

Charnace had been put to great disadvantage by 
the fates. During all those years in which he him- 
self had been studying an antiquated theolog)^, and 
splitting hairs with the Calvinists, and meditating 
upon the dolors of heretics in their final state. La 
Tour had been training himself by actual trapping 
among the Acadian aborigines, and learning all the 
ins and outs of the fur business, and had made friends 
among all tribes, and knew all rivers; and he had 
already acquired a good working capital by which he 
could build forts and maintain garrisons, and con- 
stantly enlarge his trade ; and he had created channels 
which would as certainl}’ pour an enormous wealth 
into his feudal castle, as the great river itself would 
gather its waters and pour them into the Bay of 

1 Colonie Feodale, L’Acadie ; M. Rameau: Paris, 1877. pp. 
73, 95. 


152 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Fundy. This practical education of his rival, and the 
actual control he had obtained in the country were, 
under the circumstances, of inestimable worth. 

If Charnacd should now seize his rival, and take 
the results of his hard years, it would accord with 
the customs of feudal lords; and also with those 
precious maxims he had learned at Paris, about doing 
all sorts of doubtful or clearly wrong things for the 
greater glory of God, which he had been at such pains 
to learn, which — if not followed — would be of little 
profit to him. 

A thousand motives filled him with madness, that 
he should put forth every effort within his power to 
supplant his rival.^ Like a bolt out of heaven there 
had come a new motive into his life. He had not 
thought to see Constance in Acadia. Had not God 
brought him hither in order to rectify the great mis- 
take of his life ? Was not this strange ordering from 
his Superior to crush La Tour, a part of a celestial 
ordering for accomplishing that which was plainly 
ordained on high ? Charnacd did not dare to reason 
with himself about it. His heart beat wildly when- 
ever he thought of actually seeing Jemsek and Fort 
La Tour. Should he see them ? 


^ Rameau, p. 95. 


CH ABN ACE AND HIS SNOW SHOES. 153 


XIX. 


CHARXAC^: AXD HIS SNOW SHOES. 
HERE was so much frost in the long gun barrel 



as to require great care in handling without 
buckskins, when Charnacd set out upon his snow 
shoes in the clear cold sunshine for a day in the 
forest country between Biguyduce and the Penob- 
scot. The sweet face, the finely cut features, the 
strong personality, the spirit so serene toward all 
things earthly, so impassioned toward all things 
heavenly, the marvellous combination of attractive 
qualities in Constance as he had known her in 
former years, had been in his first waking thoughts ; 
as in truth they had, perhaps, too often occupied his 
waking hours by night in place of those forms divine 
which he had sometimes imagined that he saw when 
he first consecrated himself to his sacred studies. 

Hardly did he find himself five miles away, mov- 
ing slowly, watching, listening, searching the new fal- 
len snow to see what creature might have tracked 
it since the dawn, when he was compelled to rub 
snow upon frost bites; he had been too closely 
kept within quarters since winter began. What 
else could occupy his winter hours in Pentagoiiet so 


154 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


well as the investigation of Indian words and signs, 
and the interpretation to the barbarians who served 
him of the mysteries of the faith ? If his early morn- 
ing hours usually sufficed him for the secular cares 
of his position, what better use for the remainder of 
short days and long evenings could he have found 
than systematic study of the essentials of religion, and 
the attempt so to simplify them that the wild men of 
the woods might know God as well as receive baptism, 
and might perceive the path of life as readily as they 
could discern their way through the intricate forest ? 
He had by this method not unlikely exposed him- 
self too little to the greetings of the wholesome north 
wind. 

The enthusiasm of his own spies, when making 
their reports relating to Constance, had, however, 
now so disturbed his usual avocations, that he 
needed the recreation of a day’s hunting. If he 
took little interest in following and killing, it was 
at the least a delight to see how many of God’s 
creatures were running Avild and free, in happy ig- 
norance of the weights and woes which bore so 
heavily upon the huntsman. 

La Tour, indeed, his spies had taught him to hate 
more and more. Yes, it was a word well chosen : it 
Avas employed by the sweet psalmist of the Hebrews, 
and there had been no true hero of the Holy Faith 
Avho did not hate as Avell as love. Charnacd kept his 
hate for his enemies. La Tour was too cunning, too 
crafty, too competent, too successful to be allowed to 


CHARNACE AND HIS SNOW SHOES. 155 


carry on his career ; every day was making it more 
difficult to dislodge him. 

But Constance had won almost the worship of those 
who had followed her in the unselfish service to which 
she devoted her life. Could it be that in the days of 
his unhappy youth he had been led to choose other- 
wise than to place himself in the high and holy com- 
panionship of this fair saint, whose practical piety 
must be held to more than offset the errors of her 
opinions ? 

. He tried to recall the sweet face of Roderigo. Was 
there no lineament in his features suggestive of the 
demoniacal origin of the work which he did ? Had 
not Charnacd dreamed only the last night, that he 
saw Palladio pacing up and down the gun-platforrn 
next the sea, in a halo of sulphureous light ? He 
knew that his old teacher was dead. How pale 
Eoderigo looked to him in his dream, and how 
ghastly was the light, and how vivid the lambent 
flames. 

Kindling to flame a log of pitchwood, which he 
partially excavated from its bed of snow, Charnacd 
cut a few hemlock boughs and spread them upon the 
drift, and lay down upon them, between the fire and 
the arbor vitae shrubs which hedged off the wind. 
He had removed his snow shoes and his moccasins ; 
and after his feet were thoroughly warmed, he ate his 
lunch of cold venison. He then occupied himself in 
tracing the tracks of the little wild creatures, which 
in their wide paths — upon the sunny and sheltered 


156 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


side of the thick hedge of evergreen — had scam- 
pered in delight in this lonely retreat, or wandered 
in hunger after the long storm. Perhaps his unsea- 
sonable coming had disturbed their sports or their 
forays for food. 

Lying as still as the dead, with his feet to the fire, 
he saw in a little while a few birds come out, as if by 
magic, from the mysterious forest ; and he saw them 
fiitting over the snow, in which many of their com- 
panions had perished. He thought of the sweet 
singers which had starved and frozen in the tough 
storm, and the remorseless winding sheet which cov- 
ered them. Perhaps he was even then lying over 
their stark forms, encased in the deep drift under 
the evergreen lee. Had all these fallen without the 
knowledge of the pitiful Creator ? Was not the 
kindly Saviour of men mindful of the sparrows ? 
Even St. Francis had thought of the sparrows. 

Then he thought of the blinding passions, which 
slew men in multitudes ; and of his own instructions 
from his holy Superior, and the expectations of the 
Hundred and of Eichelieu, that Charnacd, — who 
would not wantonly destroy a wildwood bird, and 
who could hardly be said to carry the heart of a 
hunter with his long gun into the wilderness, — 
would beleaguer the defenders of Fort La Tour, and 
kill if needful all but Constance. 

Was Constance in reality with his foe La Tour ? 
He would give all the furs in Acadia could he know 
for certain that she had never risen from the heaps 


charnacjS and ms snow shoes, 157 

of starved wretches who were piled in the narrow 
streets of La Eochelle, where he had seen her in his 
dreams so often in those nights of that terrible siege. 
How could he dispel the vision that had haunted 
him so long, of her unearthly eyes glowing like coals 
from off the altar, standing out so prominently over 
her hollow cheeks before she died ? It must be that 
his long fasting in his lonely cell, and his anxiety, and 
his prayers for her safety had made him ill ; for he had 
never been so impressed with anything as he had been 
with this vision of the dying and dead Constance. 
Could it be that in those terrible days, she was safe 
in Acadia ? JSTo, not safe. La Tour was in Acadia. 

All this must be a dreadful dream. He was de- 
ceived by his spies. Constance was dead. The 
whole world, conspiring to delude him, could not 
make him believe that she was still alive ; that she 
was now at that moment in the same all circling 
forest with him, only far away ; that mere journey- 
ing for days and days of the winter months upon his 
snow shoes would bring him where he could see her 
with his own eyes, as his spies reported that they had 
seen her. 

Would it do any good to test the matter, to write 
to her, and perhaps get an answer in her own hand ? 
AVould it not possibly open some way out of this 
tangle, as to stealing upon La Tour as upon a wild 
beast to ensnare him or kill him, for his furs, and 
the saving of souls under the rule of Urban rather 
than by the rule of Calvin ? 


158 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


He had often thought of writing to Constance. 
But what to write, he did not know. She might 
have changed toward him. She could not love 
La Tour, whose moral sensibilities were, in his 
judgment, not more than an intelligent beaver might 
have. 

He took out from his bosom Constance’s Thomas 
k Kempis. He would underscore such words as 
would make a letter, and send it to her. He would 
so write : “ I warn you, that I must be obedient to 
my Superior. Whatever may follow, you will know 
that I still love you.” He read it aloud. “No, that 
is not the best message. I will send this book to 
Constance, and merely tell her that I have not ceased 
to carry it next my heart. There will be nothing 
indelicate about that, and it may mean much or little 
to her, according to her own heart.” 

Then he concluded, that this would not answer. 
It was not positive enough. He cut a note sheet of 
birch bark, and wrote upon it; then held it off at 
arm’s-length, and read it : “ Constance, I have not 
forgotten you.” 

“It will not be needful for me to sign it; my 
handwriting is sufficient signature.” 

Then he folded it up, and placed it carefully in the 
fire, which was still fitfully blazing and smouldering. 
He saw his letter end in smoke. 

It did not seem kind, or thoughtful, or delicate in 
him, to write to her — if she was married. “If, — 
would God that she was dead. 


CHARNAC:^ AND HIS SNOW SHOES. 159 

“'No I will not offend her sense of propriety by 
writing to her.” 

He had spoken in an excited, passionate tone, — 
so talking to himself, and the wild inhabitants of the 
wood. Jean Pitchibat was one of the inhabitants, 
in that noon tide. It was when he told Constance 
all this that he had seen and heard, that she had 
been so strangely disturbed upon her walk amid the 
glittering halls of the ice palace on that still Saturday 
west of Grand Lake, — strangely disturbed that her 
name should still be upon the lips of her old lover 
at Castine. 

Charnac4 heard a step in the crisp under-snow, 
where the fresh snow was light. 

At that instant, a buck and doe, and a fawn of last 
season, appeared, and passed through the forest to the 
windward. Charnacd fired ; and quickly strapped on 
his snow shoes, and followed the blood stains of the 
wounded. 

“Was it the doe that I have wounded?” asked 
Charnacd, too sensitive to make a good hunter. 

“If it is not right for me to communicate with 
Constance, is it right for me to make war upon her 
husband ? I have no heart to kill him for his pelt- 
ries. By what authority of heaven did my Superior 
insist upon this, for the greater glory of God ? No 
sophisms can make it right, that I should disturb 
this home. The world is big enough for La Tour 
and for the Hundred ; and the souls of the savages 
will not be lost by any heresy they will learn from 


160 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Constance. I will countermand the orders to pre- 
pare for embroiling Acadia in civil war.” 

Slacking his pursuit of his wounded game, he cut 
a great strip of birch bark. He had seen, in the li- 
brary of St. Pol de Leon, the gospel of Matthew 
written in Greek upon birch bark. He would write 
down his thoughts. It would amuse him to do it. 
He wanted to look his thoughts in the face, and see 
what clothing they might wear : — 

“ Did I not come to America to lose myself ? Here 
I have found myself, — rapacious, cruel. Am I per- 
sonally losing character, that Kichelieu may grow 
rich in pelts? I will no longer eat out my heart 
upon the Biguyduce mussel beds and mud-flats. 
I will not turn my back upon the dreams of my 
youth, and degenerate into a mere collector of elk- 
hides and fox skins, and kill a rival trader — to 
please Eichelieu. And as to the Jesuit Superior 
and the souls of the savages, I will fly from Con- 
stance. I will put oceans of forest between us. I 
will go to the head of the St. Lawrence, and descend 
the great river that flows westward to the Pacific.^ 
I will found the empire of God upon another ocean. 
And this penance of unselfish service will be accepted 
of God, and my soul’s deepest longings will be satis- 

1 The enterprising Jesuit missionaries and fur traders in trav- 
ersing the opening continent, believed that the head of the St. 
Lawrence was a little west of Superior in a lake whose western 
outflow led to the Pacific. Charlevoix’s map is of great interest. 
And the wild goose chase so long followed by Champlain, as 
described by Parkman, is a fascinating story. 


CHARNAC:^ AND HIS SNOW SHOES. 161 


fied, and I shall be at rest. And the- General of the 
Society of Jesus will proclaim to the Order, not that 
Charnacd was disobedient, but that he was so con- 
sumed with zeal for the conversion of the pagan 
world, that he had crossed the ocean of the Ameri- 
can wilderness, and raised the cross upon the hither 
side of the unknown rivers and mountains of the New 
World, opened new realms for France, and added vast 
territories to the kingdom of God and His Church.” 

The sun no sooner turned from his low zenith to 
hasten his going down in the short winter’s day, be- 
fore the intense cold of the morning was renewed, and 
began by aid of the light air stirring to snap now and 
then some branch in the forest. The fall of a great 
limb of white pine, which had held no small weight 
of snow upon it since the storm, showered Charnacd 
with its mingled twigs and snow, and the main 
stem lay athwart his path. Folding his birch manu- 
script, he quickened his steps toward the frozen river, 
following the blood stains in the snow. 

“ Be still, my heart,” he cried aloud, “ Is not God 
thy Father ? Is not the Church thy mother ? Is not 
Jesus the bridegroom of thy soul ? Yes, in the fu- 
ture world, — not now.” 

Then he paused in the path made by the deer 
through the deep snow, — planting his snow shoes 
over the bright blood stains. 

Eaising his eyes toward heaven, he said, in a rev- 
erent voice, — “What God hath joined together, let 
no man put asunder. 


11 


162 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


" Not even my sweet spirited and honored teacher 
Palladio,” he added in a low tone, looking toward 
the west, and the strange colors in the sky gleam- 
ing through the forest. “No, he had no right to 
separate our hearts by his instruments of sharp 
casuistry. 

“ And La Tour had not the right he would have 
had, if he had been more manly. No, La Tour has 
no right,” — he said in bitterness. 

The tops of the pines were beginning to sway this 
way and that, in the rising wind. Like a pendulum, 
swinging first this way then that, moved the heart 
of Charnac^, under the strong passions which agitated 
him. 

“No, I will not traverse more wilderness to the 
westward. My star is in the east. I am released 
from my vows, but my word is outstanding, — or 
at least a moral obligation, a tacit pledge, that I will 
obey my Superior. He looks upon me as a part of 
his system in Acadia. He does not look to find me 
upon the Pacific. He ought to be able to depend 
upon his machinery to work his will with precision. 
If his will is at fault, let him look to it. But I be- 
lieve that he will not clash with God. The divine 
Providence permits the sparrows to fall, and La Tour 
may fall.” 

There was a grim satisfaction in his face, when he 
said that. It was not a cast-iron face which Char- 
nac4 wore when he was envious, angry, or in his 
worst moods. It was, rather, a wrought-iron face. 


CHARNACJ^ AND HIS SNOW SHOES. 103 


heated and hammered, then cooled and hardened. Or 
perhaps, then, his face was not lacking in suggestions 
of ice ; as if chiselled out of it, smooth, polished, hard, 
cold. Whether ice or iron were in his face, it was 
plain that his thoughts toward La Tour were some- 
thing deeper and more malignant than one who was 
merel}^ a fur trader could have toward another trader, 
with so wide a world of skins on foot everywhere 
upon the vast continent. 

Then his heart broke again, like the heavily laden 
boughs of pine and snow snapping now so frequently 
by the icy frost fingers and the cold breathing out of 
the North. Then his face of ice or iron melted, and 
hot tears flowed ; and he sighed, as if moved by some 
great sorrow which now weighed more heavily upon 
him in his ripened years than it could have done in 
his earlier life. 

Charnacd was of that full age when Alexander 
mastered the world, and when the French Calvin 
wrought his miracle of reformation. Was he not in 
the maturity of his judgment, and of his powers ? But 
the very sensitiveness of his nature, that ability to 
enter delicately into the feelings of others, so essential 
to mastering their wills, that heart of his, throbbing 
now so wildly, was the very ground of his weak- 
ness — if weakness it was — as well as his strength. 
Was it not said by rumor, that even Eichelieu was 
not without love ? Some of the most eminent in the 
Church were not without human friends. The pure 
friendships of godly ecclesiastics open the brightest 


164 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


pages in the gloomy book of the dark ages. Why 
then should Charnacd seclude himself upon this 
desolate shore, keeping company with 'wolves and 
wild men ? So he reasoned with himself, as he has- 
tened along the deer path. He longed for a presence. 
Had anything been left out of his education ? Was 
there no spiritual rest? His mind was not lacking 
in appreciation of natural beauty, but he longed to 
people the world with spiritual forms. 

It cannot be said that Charnacd had a tinge of 
melancholy in his temperament. Upon the other 
hand he was not only cheerful, but of wholesome 
hearty faith in God, and man, and in himself But 
his early discipline had led him to entertain sober 
views of life rather than gay, and he was thoughtful 
rather than heedless. And a great impression had 
been made upon his mind by the fact, that the 
heights of the Church, as seen by him, were less 
heavenly than he had been led to look for. His 
apparent success was of less value, from having been 
conferred by unworthy men upon a person having 
less merit than he had hoped to store up in his heart 
when he should enter upon life’s duties. The world 
he stepped upon had an empty heartless sound. 

He decided to take the middle course, to obey his 
Superior, to fulfil the expectations of the Associates, 
and to satisfy the passion in his heart, by going for- 
ward with the preparations to attack Fort La Tour. 
Then, after that, he would act as circumstances might 
arise. If La Tour should be held, and accused of 


CEARNACE AND EIS SNOW SEOES. 165 


treason for fortifying with the intent to betray his 
King, — if treason could be proved against him as it 
easily might be, — then Charnac^ might abandon 
the Jesuits after having discharged himself of the' 
commands already given him, and refuse to be 
directed further. In this even, with the passage of 
years, even if he should never marry, there might be 
hours of holy converse with Constance in the Acadian 
wild country; and with her he could lead the pagans 
into higher paths of life. If this was not the light he 
sought, it was the only light he saw, — in the 
gathering twilight. 

Charnacd was cold, and chilled through, by his 
slow-moving, doubting, hesitating steps. He there- 
fore abandoned the trail, and advanced as rapidly 
as possible by a short cut to the easier walking on 
the river. “This heavy carpet of snow and thick 
ice,” he said to himself, “leave the fishes in the 
dark for months together. How glad they will be 
to see the sun.” 

He now remembered that his devotions had been 
long disturbed by conflicting thoughts. Had not this 
Jemsek business affected his religious peace ? As he 
had come at this moment where he could see the 
Cross against the evening sky, rising high above the 
fort, lie crossed himself, and bowed his head : — 

“ I cry unto thee, thou pitying Mary, to intercede 
for me, that I may be guided in the right way. May 
the anguish of my heart be met by the sense of thy 
love, and the love of thy dear Son. And help me to 


166 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


do the duty of to-day, by the power given thee by thy 
Son to pity the needy, and to guide those who are out 
of the right way. 

“ Lord Jesu, pity me, if I venture to pray to Thee. 
Judge of the world, be not angry with me, that I 
know so little the path I ought to follow. I wish to 
be obedient. And since Thou hast given the keys of 
earth and heaven to the head of Thy church upon the 
earth, deign Thou to help me, as I obey the Superior 
whom Thou has set over me, who is to me in Thy 
stead. I do it with willing heart. Let my sacrifice 
of my own will and judgment be acceptable unto 
Thee.” 


THE BLOCKADE. 


167 


XX. 

THE BLOCKADE. 

HEX Charnac^ began to lay aside the strictly 



V V ecclesiastical character in which he first 
appeared at Cape Sable, and assume his true office 
of a Lieutenant General in Acadia, he began to lay 
aside the habit of a Jesuit scholar, and attire himself 
according to the fashion of the age, — sobered some- 
what by the deep shadows of the Acadian wilderness 
and the sober sea. When now, at the end of the lag- 
ging spring, he headed the expedition- to reduce Fort 
La Tour, he did not fail to accoutre himself as a cava- 
lier in full dress for war. It would give more heart to 
his soldiers ; and it might be more pleasing to Con- 
stance, if they should meet, as they undoubtedly 
would before midsummer, and most likely within the 
month. 

Unconscious of any logical process, he found him- 
self comparing his sky blue and purple and cardinal 
colors with the clothing of Kaphael’s angels, as he 
had seen them before he came to Acadia where 
angels were scarce. He wondered what colors were 
made radiant by being worn by the Guardian Angel 
of Constance; and whether she was as cognizant of 


168 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


his presence, as she claimed to be when she was a 
very little child. He remembered that she said little 
in her more mature years about him who had been 
appointed to minister unto her; but that she still 
believed in the presence of her Celestial Guide was 
certain, since she had alluded to it upon the last 
evening they spent together at her father’s house. 

When he, — as a confirmed Eomanist devoted to 
to the Society of Jesus, — had threatened to take 
orders unless she would marry him, did she not reply, 
gazing fixedly at the walls of ruby and the battle- 
ments of Paradise glowing in the fire on the hearth, 
that she would then have no earthly companion save 
her Guardian Angel, and that he would be more to 
her thenceforth, and that he would direct her feet to 
the heavenly Bridegroom ? 

And Charnacd, in all his battle attire, could hardly 
see his own form in his mirror, from the mists which 
gathered in his eyes. It must be, he thought, that 
Constance stood little in need of earthly loves. And, 
while he had no fear of La Tour and his fate in the 
outcome of the present expedition, he could not but 
ask himself whether there might not be legions of 
angels fighting for Constance. 

Then it occurred to him, to set his own spiritual 
attire in such order, that no good angels could find 
it in their hearts to contend against him. And he 
gave his hours to devotion, until Ptoland Capon, his 
secretary, called him to embark. 

Adverse winds were welcome to Charnacd, his 


THE BLOCKADE. 


169 


hesitating purpose leading him to tack this way and 
that in reaching the St. John. He went all over 
again the familiar story of the rise of Eichelieu, as 
Bishop, as Cardinal, and as the official head of three 
principal monastic orders. It was not becoming in 
Charnacd to presume to judge, to be too nice. It was 
well known, that it often happened, that Eichelieu’s 
private plans were well concealed under schemes for 
the public good ; and why might it not be so in this 
case — Charnacd advancing against his rival. He 
would not be too scrupulous. 

It was surely an accusation of the enemies of the 
Holy Church, emanating from the great adversary, 
that he himself, in obeying his Superior, was willing 
to do evil that good might come. Is not all evil in the 
motive ? The motive is good, — the greater glory of 
God. Does not this holy end make holy the means 
needful to reach that end ? The life, or at least the 
liberty, or at least the carnal prosperity of La Tour 
must be sacrificed — for the good of the Church, the 
State, the holy Hundred Associates who were to plant 
Catholic colonies, and, also, for the spiritual good of 
La Tour himself. 

Charnacd was glad at last when the wind changed. 
Perhaps the Guardian Angel of Constance was more 
favorable. Never as upon that beautiful morning, the 
first of June, when he sighted Partridge Island, did 
the beautiful system of Loyola seem so fair to Charnacd, 
so artistic, so finely fitted to the needs of the world. 
What, indeed, could be more wonderful than that the 


170 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


solitary Spanish soldier, demanding obedience wher- 
ever man might be and in whatever he might be 
engaged, should find those who would surrender con- 
science itself to a Superior, and confess it as a sin if 
they merely questioned the rectitude of his mandate. 
How happy was the condition of Charnacd, if in this 
case the mandate might coincide with his own wishes. 
And how evident would be the blessing of God upon 
his own obedience if, as the outcome of this war, the 
Guardian Angel of Constance should smile upon 
him. 

As the ships were assuming their positions, 
and coming to anchor, Charnacd confessed to his 
priest Fra Cupavo, and received the sacrament. The 
holy father well knew the mental agitation of his 
illustrious penitent ; and after the administration of 
the holy wafer, he placed in the hands of Charnacd a 
copy of Loyola’s Letter on Obedience, — opened to the 
passage : — “ Fix it in your mind that whatever the 
Superior commands, is the order and will of God 
himself.” 

The prosaic, practical, prayerless, imperturbable La 
Tour was not engaged in questions of casuistry upon 
the first morning in June. He had just shipped his 
furs to France; and he was pitching out cod fish with 
a fork from the smack Dora, when the alarm was 
given that Charnacd had appeared in the offing. Char- 
nacd, if he should happen to take the fort, would find 
little in it for spoils, except scrod and salt fish. His 
spies had kept General La Tour well informed what 


THE BLOCKADE. 


171 


to expect ; but he had seen no reason why there 
would not be the usual run of fish in May, and they 
might run on in June. 

The stolid fisherman La Tour was not lacking in 
system; in fishing time he fished, in pelt time he 
was after everything that wore a hairy hide, and 
when diplomacy was in order he plied his arts ; and 
he prepared for war by attending to his business as 
usual until the conflict came. 

A great variety of edible fish came to the stake- 
nets upon the flats below the fort, sometimes break- 
ing the nets by their weight. Ale wives and herring, 
the sea-shad in its season, pike, turbot, and salmon ; 
congers, lampreys, the valued gold fish, the mullet, 
the merle, and the wawwunnekeseag ; bass ; white por- 
poises as big as oxen ; ^ the sturgeon or armor fish ; 
and, by deep sea hauling, the halibut, — were among 
the fish brought to the Castle La Tour. 

It was commonly reputed among the Eomanists in 
Acadia, that the Massachusetts Bay people worship- 
ped a cod fish, which had been suspended over the 
pulpit in their meeting-house at Boston, which was 
used for the Great and General Court; the fish skin 
stuffed having been presented to the colony by Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, after its contents had been served 
up in chowder upon the occasion of his first inaugu- 
ration as Governor. La Tour therefore looked to the 
Bostonians for sympathy and practical aid against 
Charnac^ ; M. Eochet, sending to them to establish 
1 La Honton, I. 244. 


172 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


free trade and a military alliance. The Bay people 
took the trade, it being free ; but declined to aid, — 
that being thought too risky.^ 

M. Eochet was, however, more successful in France, 
in procuring soldiers and colonists with capital. “He 
caused it to be published in La Eochelle, that he 
offered to all those who would choose the climate of 
Acadia as their home, lands and fields of great fer- 
tility, which had been conceded to La Tour, abounding 
in all sorts of birds and hunter’s game.” ^ 

He enlisted, as colonists for the Acadian planta- 
tions, for the accumulation of furs, for the fisheries, 
and for the garrison, the trained soldiery of La Eo- 
chelle and Aunis ; and not a few of the fierce fight- 
ing water-dogs from Ars, La Flotte, and St. Martin 
upon the low sandy lagoons and marshes of Ed. 
And he secured a little handful of hired soldiers out 
of Savoy, — from the Yal Pragela, and from Era du 
Tour, some of them schoolmates of Charles la Tour. 
And he brought to the St. John a few enterprising 
colonists who had been driven away from the St. 
Lawrence by the Jesuits. 

So were all things made ready for dispelling the 
dream of a golden age in Acadia ; and the rivals met 
to fight for the possession of the country and the 
Queen of Acadia ; setting aside sentimentality, much 
as the two Shoalers did in 1625, who agreed to 

1 Consult Hubbard’s History, pp. 478, 479 ; and Winthrop, II. 
91. 

2 Rameau, p. 72. 


THE BLOCKADE. 


173 


“heave the law one side” till they should get 
through fighting. 

Charnacd had indeed laid his plans with care. He 
came at the time of year when the larder was lowest, 
and the garrison smallest, and helpers most widely 
scattered ; and he came in superior force. His two 
ships and a galliot blocked the ship channel between 
Partridge Island upon the southwest and Bruyeres 
Point ; and a pinnace lay upon the northeast of the 
island. A portion of his five hundred men were set 
to such service as seemed likely to forward his enter- 
prise upon the land. Spies, as soldiers for the service 
of I.a Tour, had been already sent into the fort itself 
some months since, who should by timely desertion 
keep Charnac^ informed of the state of the garrison, 
and betray the fort if opportunity might offer. 

With his ships out of range of tlie fort’s artillery, 
and with force enough to command the surrounding 
country, Charnac^ took the cue from his king at the 
siege of La Eochelle, and proposed to cut off all 
supplies by sea or land. And so effective were the 
measures he took at the outset, that capitulation was 
only a question of time. 

La Tour was not slow to see this. Jean Pitchibat 
and Joe Takouchin silently slipped out of the fort, 
and stole down to the headlands southwest, to inter- 
cept the armed ship Clement, which was overdue from 
La Eochelle with a cargo of supplies, and a long list 
of soldiers and colonists. The Clement was signalled 
within a day or two, after the siege had begun in 
earnest by the close guarding of all points of ingress 


174 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


and egress. Joe and Jean found their way on board; 
and M. Rochet kept his ship away from Charnacd’s guns. 

The besieger was not strong enough to cope with 
a new foe ; and he had no more resources this side 
of old France. He could not break his line to attack 
the Clement, without giving La Tour the chance to 
join forces; and the Rochelle guns floating outside 
were ready to open upon him if he were to change 
position. 

Charles la Tour was not the man to sit down delib- 
erately and starve to death rather than capitulate ; or 
live long upon dry codfish. Upon the first dark 
night after the Clement arrived, Constance stepped 
into the bow of a birch canoe, and her husband sat 
in the stern to steer ; and, without a paddle stroke, 
they shot upon the swift ebbing tide between the 
pines of the Carleton shore and the cliffs of Partridge 
Island, under the very guns of the beleaguering ships. 

Constance at the look out, when they floated past 
Charnac^, heard his singularly musical and pene- 
trating voice in the darkness, for the first time since 
she had heard it in love accents in her old home : — 
“ The spy, who came down last night, says, that his 
comrades will send down La Tour in shackles at 
midnight.” 

When they were beyond hearing, and could ply 
their paddles. General La Tour laughed merrily, — and 
the louder since the conspirators had been already 
ironed and placed in the dungeon. 

They soon reached the relief-ship ; and, before 
dawn, were out of sight upon the high seas. 


QOVEBNOR WINTHROrS GARDEN, 175 


XXI. 


GOVERNOR WINTHROP’S GARDEN. 

HE founder of Boston cultivated, upon the mar- 



gins of his island, sow-bugs for medical pre- 
scriptions. To the regret of a much quoted traveller, 
and the chagrin of the medical profession, the Gov- 
ernor could not acclimate any of “ that sort that are 
blew and turn round as a pea when they are touched.” 

It is to be said to the credit of Governor Winthrop, 
that he ripped up the bushes and grubbed his garden- 
ground with his own hands. Many of good birth, ac- 
cording to the “Wonder Working Providence,” who 
had been gently bred in Old England, and who had 
scarce ever set hand to labor before, did the same ; 
and until corn and cattle and beans were plenty, the 
Bostonians did not despise pumpkins.^ 

Upon the afternoon of the twelfth of June, the 
very day of the year in which the Arbella entered 
Salem harbor. Governor Winthrop was weeding his 
turnips down the harbor, upon the seventy acre plat 
now occupied by Fort Winthrop. He would prob- 

i “ Let no man make a jest of pumpkins ; for with this fruit 
the Lord was pleased to feed his people to their good content.” — 
Johnson’s Wonder Working Providence, p. 56. 


176 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


ably be compelled to visit several agricultural fairs 
in the autumn, and he was giving strict attention to 
business; his carrots and cabbages might take the 
premium. 

Hearing the measured splash of oars, he looked up, 
and saw his neighbor Mistress Gibones and her chil- 
dren approaching the boat landing as fast as strong 
oars and swift boatmen could bring her. She was 
being chased by General La Tour and his wife. 

The Clement,^ with her decks crowded with sol- 
diers grinning to see the sport, was within easy range 
of the Governor, so that he repressed his first impulse 
to run to the landing and scotch the French invader 
with his hoe. 

With nimble wit he decided upon the instant that 
the enemy had taken possession of the Castle, below ; 
knowing that the solitary keeper of that fortification 
had left all his guns and munitions, — as he had no- 
ticed him an hour since spading for quahaugs just 
east of the garden. He was therefore prudent by 
instinct, — the more willingly so, since he saw that 
the grass widow — whose husband had gone to the 
Sagamore of the Massachusetts upon business for the 
colony — was gaining upon the foe in her escape. 

It is at this point a relief to read, in the most sat- 
isfactory of the books about Boston, that “ La Tour 
met Governor Winthrop very cordially” upon his 
own island.^ The complacency of the Lieutenant 

1 Hubbard’s Hew England, p. 479. 

2 It was not until some years after, when he was the guest of 


GOVERNOR WlNTHROrS GARDEN 111 


Governor of Acadia, so far from suffering by his 
enforced canoe voyage, had become more emphatic 
as he approached the first families of Boston, being 
all first — fresh from the old home — in those days. 
The self contained Acadian undoubtedly “ welcomed 
Winthrop, who stood in a meek attitude, hardly 
knowing whether or not General La Tour intended 
to capture him and his family and the fair Mrs. 
Gibones, and sail away ; having first provisioned and 
manned the castle, against his return to bombard 
Boston. 

When, however, M. Eochet, who landed with La 
Tour, proved to be an old-time guest of Mrs. Edward 
Gibones, explanations soon followed, — and they all 
went into the Governor’s summer house, — which 
had just been completed,^ where he escaped the 
heated " city,” — and partook of Mrs. Winthrop’s 
pumpkin pie and potatoes. 

Madam Winthrop had just returned from a trip to 
England, and was unwrapping the parcels she had 
brought. Coming upon the tobacco her husband 
had written for, their accommodating free-and-easy 
guest was urged by the hospitable Governor, — who 
diminished his estate not a little in giving to the 
needy, — to try a hand. 

Maverick at Noddle’s island, being temporarily at a lower ebb than 
common in his fortunes, that the Bay people remarked the fact that 
La Tour uniformly took off his hat when he spoke of himself. 

lit stood upon the high ground on the west of the island, near 
the block house. 


12 


178 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


The Governor apologized for the lack of wine, stat- 
ing that his rent to the colony for the use of the 
island had been paid in the juice of the grape, one 
hogshead, from his first vintage ; the season coming 
he could pay in pippins, two bushels, — and then 
his wine pipe would be on tap for his friends from 
Acadia. 

Toward evening, they saw three shallops of armed 
men sweeping down from Boston to prevent La Tour 
from kidnapping their Governor. 

Doctor Cotton, from his study window, upon what 
"was afterwards called Cotton Hill, now Pemberton 
Square,^ had seen the armed stranger salute the 
Castle, without awakening the appropriate echo. 
Knowing that a part of the work had tumbled 
down, and that the guns might be stolen ; that the 
two mercliant ships in the harbor could offer no op- 
position; that the town itself might be taken, it be- 
ing a time of pirates, and of frequent outbreaking 
wars, — he hurried down the foot path to give the 
alarm. Happening to meet Deputy Governor Dud- 
ley, who was posing in a statuesque attitude, at 
about the spot where the statue of Governor Win- 
throp now stands in Scollay Square, the Deputy at 
once took fire. It had been his hobby to build Bos- 
ton at ]Srewtown,2 a place with room enough to fortify, 
and less exposed to strange ships ; and he had fiercely 

1 His house was at the south end of the Square, at au altitude 
eighty feet above the present pavement. 

Cambridge. 


GOVERNOR WINTHROP'S GARDEN. 179 

quarrelled with Winthrop, who saw the superior ad- 
vantages of the Shawmut peninsula for a seaport. 

The Deputy, who — if he had stood still in his 
tracks where the Doctor met him, — would have 
looked better than the Winthrop monument, did not 
pause to think of an admiring posterity; he was 
alarmed for the safety of the chief magistrate, for 
whom he had a peculiar affection. He knew the 
Governor was out of town, caring for cucumbers 
instead of the common weal ; it was on this account 
that he had ridden in from his country seat in Dor- 
chester; and he had spent the entire morning in 
attitudinizing first on this corner then on that, pick- 
ing out a place for his statue, and nudging the 
neighbors to make good the affairs of State so sadly 
neglected by their agricultural Governor. 

When Dr. Cotton pointed out to him the French 
ship, which was apparently of a hundred and forty or 
fifty tons, lying to, opposite the Governor’s garden, 
Dudley answered, — “I will at once assume the en- 
tire charge of the State ; the Governor is undoubtedly 
in irons by this time ; and he will be whisked out 
to sea before we know it. He would make an ex- 
cellent plantation hand at the Barbadoes. — Did you 
say that the Castle did not return the pirate’s salute ? 
His excellency will, hereafter, I trust, look to the for- 
tifications, — if he escapes now. What ho ! What ho 1 ” 
Seeing Constable Jeremy Houtchin, leaning against 
the whipping post ^ waiting for business, he walked 
1 At the comer of State and Devonshire. 


180 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


in a dignified manner to meet him; shouting in 
measured and impressive tones, “ What ho ! ” much 
like a town crier. 

The alarm was given. The Constable moved, as 
rapidly as his dignity would allow, down the street 
to Merchants’ Row, which was then the water-front, 
and turning to the left, entered Cole’s tavern, the 
Three Mariners, where he easily secured volunteers, 
of whom he assumed the command ; and they 
marched to the principal landing, where the Quincy 
Market now stands. The Deputy Governor gave the 
Constable particular directions and lengthy, what to 
do and what not to do, whatever had happened or 
had not happened, and whatever might occur there- 
after, — he was in short to use his discretion ; the 
State had perfect confidence in the Constable. 

The pilot boat, Number 19, which spent most of 
her time in cod fishing outside, had now come in. 
The Clement coming up in a fair wind had taken a 
pilot out of 19, and had left a French lubber in his 
stead to help dress the fish ; this Frenchman was 
taken in hand by the Constable, to serve as an in- 
terpreter in conversing with the pirate. The Con- 
stable was visibly affected when he bade the Deputy, 
or Governor as he had called him, “ Good by.” He 
bade the Deputy cheer up, assuring him, that he dared 
do all that might become a man. 

When, however, the three shallops of armed men 
learned the true situation, they “welcomed” the 
Lieutenant Governor of Acadia, very “ cordially ; ” 


GOVERNOR WINTHROP^S GARDEN. 181 

and told him that they were glad to see him ; that 
they had come down for the express purpose of es- 
corting him up to their hamlet, — called the “ hub ” 
from its solid trimountain rising to such hei<]rht with 
a rim of water on everyside, — where he would be 
hospitably entertained. 

General La Tour’s boat’s crew having been long on 
board their ship, had made the most of their wander- 
ings over the island, gathering sorrel to flavor their 
soups ; and having made friends of His Excellency’s 
Pequots, they had obtained a few onions. Saint- 
Leger, with a French sailor’s hankering for frogs, 
had the misfortune to lift the cover off a pot of gar- 
den toads which Kikatch ought to have been baking 
to a powder, but was not ; so that the victims of the 
pharmacopoeia peculiar to the island escaped. Ki- 
katch undertook to prevent Saint-Leger from dump- 
ing his sorrel and onions into the boat. But the 
Governor kindly interfered, having accepted the offer 
of his guest to take him up to the city in his own 
boat. The dignity of the State was maintained — 
in spite of the vegetables — by the somewhat excit- 
ing efibrts of the shallops to keep within hail of the 
Governor without running him down or leaving him 
behind altogether. It had been not without mis- 
givings, that Jeremy Houtchin had seen his Gov- 
ernor enter the same boat with the fierce Acadian. 

Mistress Gibones, who had been upon her way to 
the Major’s farm, had now turned back; and she 
prepared her house to receive the charming Madame 


182 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


La Tour and the General. Her home was situated 
upon what is now the east side of Washington Street, 
on the corner opposite the foot of Cornhill. The head 
of the town cove came up to the point now occupied 
by the Samuel Adams statue ; the cove lines extend- 
ing upon the one side along North street, and upon 
the other toward Faneuil Hall and around Merchants’ 
Eow to Kilby street, and thence to Fort Hill. Ma- 
dame La Tour’s canopy bed looked upon the morning 
light reflected from the quiet waters of the harbor, so 
beautiful with its islands and green marshes. 

When the Bostonians learned that the many titled 
stranger, the feudal lord of St. John, was not hostile 
(as he had clearly shown by his voluntarily placing 
himself in the power of the English), and that he was 
securely housed fronting upon Dock square, which 
even then had innumerable paths leading into it from 
every quarter, — they felt easier. 

Dr. Cotton came down and interviewed the Gen- 
eral and hobnobbed with Madame, and pronounced 
them reasonably sound in theology, particularly Ma- 
dame. So Boston made its best bow, and the French 
governor and his wife had captured the city. 

Major Edward Gibones, in the edge of the even- 
ing, riding in from that arrow shaped hill in Quincy 
which gave its name to Massachusetts, had been re- 
flecting upon what good times he used to have when 
he first landed at the Mount with jolly Tom Morton. 
He stayed at Captain John Hawkins’ gate at Eock 
Hill (now Savin Hill) a moment to drink a glass of 


GOVERNOR WINTHROFS GARDEN. 183 


fresh milk from the sweet pastures of Dorchester. 
With that rollicking old sea dog, he ’d had many a 
roaring time, particularly in those days when they 
were courting their wives at Mount Wollaston. 

Then, as the Major rode along the lonely path over 
Eoxbury neck in the twilight, — hastening a little 
so as to pass the barricade gate before it was closed 
for the night, — he reflected that it was probably bet- 
ter for him, now that he was no longer a young man, 
to settle down and enjoy the confidence of society and 
hold important colonial offices, under the administra- 
tion of him whom they had been wont to call King 
Wiuthrop, than to sigh for the freedom of the days of 
his youth. 

Nevertheless, when he entered his own house, and 
found his stoutish handsome wife Margarett with 
broader face than usual, and an amazing heartiness 
in her smack of greeting, which sounded like the 
snap of loose canvas in a sudden gust — calling up 
as it did his days of sea-faring, — he was in better 
condition to meet General La Tour, who welcomed 
him to his own mansion with a complacency which 
was certainly a favor. The Major appreciated it, hav- 
ing slept the last night under a blanket in the bush. 

As happy as they could be without a May-pole, 
was this little party at the Major’s that evening. The 
Governor was busy with cares of State, and he thought 
it best for the Puritans to stay in the house after nine 
o’clock, so that the party at the foot of Cornhill was 
undisturbed by callers. 


184 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Madame La Tour was by no means a solemn indi- 
vidual ; and the Major was captivated. Of unquench- 
able vitality, her face was fairly radiant with good 
humor. It was not alone the endless outgushing of 
merrinient in her own heart, which made it possible 
to maintain a happy home with her husband ; but she 
must have been attracted to him, as he was to her, 
by the genial possibilities of every unfolding hour. 
They had at least this one thing in common. To 
this happy temperament Constance owed no small 
part of her power over the pagan Souriquois and 
Malechites. To this, likewise. La Tour owed no 
small part of his power in persuading men. The 
jollity of Margarett Gibones, and the jovial humor 
of the Major, the life and vivacity of Constance, so 
filled the house with glee, that General La Tour 
found it very easy to be one of the most affable and 
entertaining guests who ever tasted Boston brown 
bread in the land of its nativity. 

To Constance the embryo city seemed almost op- 
pressively still, so accustomed had she become to the 
loud calling — high and holy — of the wants of her 
Indian people, or the urgent voices of distressed re- 
ligionists of her nation and faith, or the mutterings 
of war about her home. It was with a sense of rest- 
fulness and gratitude to God, that she sought repose 
under the roof of a town so hospitable. And in her 
night visions, she found herself praying over the bed 
of her absent child. 


CAPTAIJS} HAWKINS, 


185 


XXII. 

CAPTAIN HAWKINS. 

I^TEXT morning when Major Gibones started his 
^ cows along up Washington Street, he sauntered 
after them as far as the Governor’s house; which 
faced south, at a point opposite School Street, the 
Old South meeting-house being afterwards erected 
in what was at that time his front yard. 

The Major found the Governor behind the house at 
the great spring, which was much visited by the chil- 
dren coming down the unfenced road from the school 
house upon the present site of King’s Chapel; and 
the children from the waterside, in going to school, 
made from Water Street to the spring a cut-off, since 
known as Spring Lane. 

It was a warm morning, and Major Gibones leaned 
against one of the great button-woods,^ while the 
cows grazed along the wayside ; and as he quaffed of 
the sweet spring water, which the Governor extended 
to him in a silver cup, he replied somewhat bluntly 
to the question of the Chief Magistrate, how it would 
do to fit out an expedition against Charnacd, — “ The 
Lord rebuke Satan.” 

1 Cut down, 1775-6. 


186 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


This was the Puritan way of swearing. It had the 
same effect upon the Governor, as if a modern politi- 
cian had said, — “ Blank Charnac4.” The Major had 
learned it at Salem ; where he was so useful to Gov- 
ernor Endicott, in getting the colony upon its land- 
legs after the sea voyage. It was here that he had 
sobered down somewhat, as he needed to do after as- 
sociating so long with the roysterers of Merry Mount ; 
and here he took to himself new views of life, and 
joined the church, — all of which he attributed to the 
happy influences of the good people of Salem. He 
was still allowed this one oath by the emphatic Endi- 
cott, who used it himself, and applied it to Kev. Mr. 
Ward and Simon Bradstreet and others, who wrote 
what he thought to be an impertinent letter to 
Governor Winthrop for the course he took in this 
same La Tour business.^ 

Governor Winthrop had spent the principal part of 
the night in studying Hebrew and Greek texts with 
his pastor, flnding precedents and precepts pertinent, 
that he might know how to answer La Tour’s appli- 
cation for aid. He now wished to examine Major 
Gibones, who served as a sort of moral thermometer 
for Boston in those days, being the younger son of 

1 “I finde the sydrits of men in this conn trie are too quick and 
forward,” wrote Endicott. The trivial use of the name of the Deity, 
and the abode of lost spirits, as exhibited in the correspondence of 
the principal men of the colony, would be deemed profane by the 
clergy and elders of to-day, if appearing in modern political letters. 
Consult Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay, Boston, 1769. 


CAPTAIN HAWKINS. 


187 


a house much honored in the old home, a son in 
himself deserving of the honors heaped upon him in 
after time, when he served the colony as Major 
General, and also four years as Lieutenant Governor. 
The Major’s pious euphemism decided the Governor. 

When the moral thermometer sauntered along after 
his cows, having turned them into the herd of some 
seventy head feeding with Elder Oliver’s horse upon 
the common pasturage south of Beacon hill, he made 
his way slowly toward Eoxhury neck, thinking to fall 
in with Captain Tom Hawkins, whpm he soon met. 

''Good morning, shipmate,” said Gibones in memory 
of their early voyages, privateering together along the 
Spanish main. 

" How are you, my hearty ? ” replied the Captain, 
extending his big red muscular right hand. “I 
thought I’d come down early, and see what that 
Frenchman wants in our Bay.” 

“He wants to hire your ships and mine, well 
manned, and a string-bean company of volunteers 
to go with Lieutenant Israel Fife, to fight Charnac^. 
And he has got strong boxes in hand to pay cash 
down. I was just cruising, thinking I should meet 
you on this tack, near the barricade-bar.” 

“ I am yours, my hearty,” answered Hawkins, “ to 
rebuke Satan, as they say in Salem. By the way, 
how handy it is for us that Endicott has some 
gumption.” 

“ Yes, I think he will stand by us. But the coun- 
try folks generally will be in high dudgeon with the 


188 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Governor if he lets the ships go. But he is used to 
it, and don’t mind what they say more than a drake 
does a thunder shower. He will stand by us, if we 
stand by him. What he wants is to be remembered 
as the founder of Boston. He don’t care anything 
about Ipswich, and the disgruntled people of Salem, 
or Mason’s Grant. What he dotes upon is to build 
up a great seaport here on these marshes. I heard 
him talk with our pastor a week ago about how 
Providence set this tri-mount here on purpose to 
be dug down and shovelled into the shallows to 
make room for the great city that is going to be 
built here.” 

“ True,” said Hawkins ; “ he will some day have a 
monument down front of your house, or in that open 
patch between Cornhill and our pastor’s house. And 
he will deserve it too. Only think of his enterprise 
in building the first bark in the Bay.” ^ 

“ That is so ; he will go down to posterity, further 
than you and I will, and he deserves it. He is long 
sighted like, you may call it. And he has got one 
idea, that you have got to have if you ever make 
a small city into a great one.” 

‘'What is that ?” 

“ He asked me at the spring, as I came along, if 
General La Tour had brought along any money with 
him. He believes in cash in hand, if you are ever 
going to do business and build up a city. He calls 

® “The Blessing of the Bay,” of thirty tons, launched on the 
Mystic, July 4, 1631. 


CAPTAIN HAWKINS. 


189 


it solid. He says we want a solid Boston, built up 
on bard money at bottom.” 

“ That sounds reasonable ; it has a good ring to it. 
What did you tell him ? ” 

“ Monsieur Eochet, who is a friend of the Governor 
of Acadia, took pains to tell me this morning while I 
was milking, that General La Tour had £5000 in 
strong boxes in his ship, straight from the merchants 
of Eochelle, in return for furs and fish he had exported. 
‘And,’ says the Frenchman, politely smiling at me, 
with a sort of humorous expression about his eyes> 
‘I should think. Major, that you could make more 
money fighting Charnac^ than you can in stripping 
these cows.’ You see Margarett had shipped my 
hands down the harbor to the farm.” 

Captain Hawkins, here, haw-hawed so loud, that 
Constable Houtchin peeped out from behind the 
corner of the meeting-house, which they had by this 
time reached, — 

“ I say, you Capting, don’t laugh so like thunder, 
or you 11 shake the steeple off the meeting-house, as 
the airthquake kind of onsettled it.” 

It was one of the happy humors of the colonists 
to speak as if they had a steeple ; but it was still 
so near the time when they had worshipped under 
a shade tree, that they made their joke, went to 
meeting by the drum-beat, and patiently waited for 
their bell tower. 


190 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXIIL 

A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY. 

''T^HIS duel for Acadia created an intense excite- 
ment in Massachusetts Bay; a State in which 
exciting events were then so rare, that the Governor 
of Massachusetts sat down with all the . calmness 
he could command, and wrote to the Governor of 
Connecticut that two calves had been killed by 
lightning. 

There were two days of debate, and many letters 
were received from the country. The arguments for 
and against aiding La Tour are reported with more or 
less fulness by Winthrop, Hubbard, and Hutchinson. 
Richard Saltonstall, Simon Bradstreet afterward Gov- 
ernor, Nathaniel Ward, and Ezekiel Rogers, led tlie 
opposition, presenting their points in writing.^ The 
presentation for La Tour was made by prominent 
citizens of Boston, under the leadership of Dr. Cotton 
and the Governor. The discussion was held in the 
meeting-house, upon the site where the Rogers 

1 Governor Endicott, who thought these gentlemen impertinent, 
objected to the French as idolatrous ; and suspected La Tour as a 
spy, who ought not to see the defences of the coast. 


A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY, 191 


Building now stands, on Washington Street, south of 
Court. 

It was a day when the English world distrusted 
the precedents of kings like Charles and James, and 
fell back, not on Josiah and Hezekiah, but upon what 
the Lord out of heaven told the Hebrew kings to do 
and not to do. They had learned to distrust Eome 
as a religious authority; and, for lack of anybody 
known to be more competent, they had taken to 
interpreting the ancient Scriptures for themselves, — 
which seemed to them reasonable, since every man 
must give an account for himself unto God. 

The influence of the clergy was observable in the 
form of the arguments, which appear to have been as 
dry as the bones in the old Indian burying-ground 
in Pemberton Square near Dr. Cotton’s house. Hot 
unlikely, the preachers intended to improve the op- 
portunity for the good of La Tour ; as one of them 
the year before had given to M. Eochet a French 
Testament, which he gratefully • received, promising 
to read it. 

The questions were two : — 1. Is it lawful for 
Christians to aid idolaters, — that is, the Papists ? 
And, if so, how far ? 2. Is it safe for the State to 

allow La Tour to have aid against Charnac^ ? 

The opposition based their opinions mainly upon 
two passages of Scripture : — 

I. It is not lawful for us as a Christian people to 
aid La Tour. 2 Chron. xix. 2 : “ Shouldest thou help 
the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord ? ” 


192 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


This text was the main point ; it being assumed that 
La Tour had little religion, that he was in the same 
nest with Ahab, and with Ahaz whom Jehoshaphat 
was reprehended for joining even commercially. 
Josias and Amaziah showed that righteous men 
ought not to be associated in any way with the un- 
godly. It was wrong in Josias to aid the King of 
Babylon against Pharaoh Kecho. 

Great stress was laid upon carnality, in which 
no confidence could be placed. La Tour might be 
carnally-minded, — as he undoubtedly was. 

The most difficult matter, however, for La Tour to 
surmount was the fact that he had two Franciscan 
Friars on board the Clement, mere figure-heads to be 
sure, to give countenance to his profession of Catholi- 
cism in his office-holding under the French King. 
But divers of the elders, says Winthrop, went down 
to confer with them, and one — Fra Millais — learned, 
acute, fluent in Latin, and a ready disputant, was 
brought up to see Mr. Cotton. It was against the law 
to have live Popish priests in Boston. Catholicism 
was, if there were choice, worse than carnality. La 
Tour would keep no faith with heretics. Aid to a 
Papist aids the Pope. 

Absolutely no help should be rendered to the 
ungodly by the city of saints. 

II. It is not prudent for the Colony to aid La 
Tour. Prov. xxvi. 17: “He that meddleth with a 
strife belonging not to him taketh a dog by the ears.” 
Charnac6 may be a bad dog to handle. He is a 


A PVRITAN DEBATING SOCIETY. 193 


valiant, prudent, and experienced soldier. He is 
spending £800 a month to carry his point. He will 
scourge the New England coast, if we meddle with 
this quarrel. Kittery is already trembling ; and Ips- 
wich remonstrates with us. Besides, if we act against 
Charnace, it may. bring on war with France, — a 
nation not so feeble in its intellectuals as to deem 
that our permission is not our action. And what 
will the authorities do, if Charnacd, or France shall 
demand the men of our expedition as murderers ? If 
the men go confiding in the Governor, and their blood 
is shed, and their souls are lost, is not the Governor 
responsible ? There is a German proverb, that he 
who loseth his life in an unnecessary quarrel dies the 
Devil’s martyr.” 

Even if it were wise for us to intermeddle, it would 
not be right to do it without first giving a hearing 
to Charnacd. Shall we declare war, before we know 
whether it be just or unjust ? 

The ends of war should be religious; this is fili- 
bustering. We ought not to take up with a mere 
adventurer. 

If it were right to enter upon a war, it is not 
prudent for the colony to do it now. Emigration has 
been checked by the rising hopes of our brethren at 
home. The Eomanists have risen in Ireland; and 
are they not more barbarous than the Iroquois ? The 
Cavaliers are gaining ground.^ We know not what 

1 John Hampden, at that moment, lay dying in defence of his 
own village against a raid from Rupert. 

13 


194 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


we shall hear next from Westminster. We ought to 
take no hasty action, and risk wrecking the great 
hopes centring in our Commonwealth, — so feeble, 
and agitated by perils enough of our own without the 
taking up of quarrels in Acadia. We can assume no 
risk except upon most careful deliberation, and the 
weightiest reasons to justify us to God and to the 
coming ages. 

Upon the other side it was said, that the Biblical 
instances of non-communication alluded to were in- 
tended for the particular cases then in hand, not for 
a uniform rule ; and that although Ahah was in no 
such distress as La Tour, as a matter of fact Jehosha- 
phat did make a league of amity with him ; that 
Josiah broke no known rule; that Major Gibones, 
than whom the Bible saints offered no better man, 
had entertained a Jesuit, and given him a chamber 
key and leave to say mass in his house to his heart’s 
content ; that if La Tour be not helped he will lose 
his fort, and if he loses his fort and stays here he 
may be dangerous, and if he goes over to Charnacd it 
may be worse yet since now he knows our condition ; 
that we do not rely upon his faith but upon his 
interest, which is to hold with us ; that aid to Papists 
may win them to the truth ; and that we may 
properly help Papists destroy each other. 

The principal point advanced was that La Tour 
should be relieved since he was in urgent distress. 
The Golden Eule, the Good Samaritan, were in point. 
Gal. vi. 10 : Do good to ^11.” Imitate the Heavenly 


A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY. 195 


Father in making the sunshine and the rain fall upon 
the just and the unjust. Joshua aided the Gibeon- 
ites against the other Canaanites.^ Jehoshaphat aided 
Jehoram against Moab. Ezek. xxvii. 17 shows that 
we may have commerce with idolaters. Nehemiah 
did not forbid trading with the heathen. In JSTeh. 
V. 17, — the Jews had heathen at their tables. Solo- 
mon was courteous to the Queen of Sheba. First 
Corinthians shows that Christians may go to heathen 
tables, if asked. 

There is ample Scriptural ground, for us to go upon, 
in relieving the distress of La Tour. 

For the second point, the quarrel is ours, since it 
is our duty to aid La Tour in his distress, and to 
weaken Charnacd ; it helps us to help La Tour in his 
attack on his enemy. Our business interests demand 
it. The Trial, the first ship built in Boston, is in 
the Acadian trade. The profits are immense. It is a 
point of conscience with us to make money, and build 
up our seaport, which Winthrop selected with such 
sagacity. The early French navigators, in exploring 
the coast, did not have the wit to discover Boston. 

As to the fear of Charnacd, we should not omit 
what is lawful and necessary lest evil come of it. 
We ought to aid La Tour in distress, and not fear, — 
1 Peter, iii. 6. Also, — “ The fear of man bringeth a 
snare.” Some fears were raised against our first 
expedition against the Pequots ; the Governor of 

1 Hubbard mentions this as Governor Wiiithrop’s principal 
argument. 


196 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Plymouth and the Connecticut brethren were afraid ; 
but the war was a blessing to the English. "‘The 
Lord hath brought us hither, through the swelling 
sea, through perils of pyrates, tempests, leakes, fires, 
rocks, sands, diseases, starvings ; and hath here pre- 
served us these many years from the displeasure of 
Princes, the envy and rage of Prelates, the malignant 
plots of Jesuits, the mutinous contentions of dis- 
contented persons, the open and secret attempts of 
barbarous Indians, the seditious and undermining 
practices of hereticall false brethren ; and is our con- 
fidence and courage all swallowed up in the fear of 
one Charnacd ? ” ^ 

Charnacd has already acted against us; and it 
cannot well be worse. If we aid La Tour, we get his 
help to weaken a dangerous enemy. 

There can be no danger from Prance, since La Tour 
is on good terms with his King. He is the rightful 
ruler, and we ought to aid him. He shows you here 
his commission as Lieutenant General of Kew Prance, 
under the hand of Louis XIII. Xor can it be said 
that the French are changeable, since here is a letter 
from La Tour’s official correspondents in France, 
dated only three months since, informing him of the 
injury Charnacd is working against him in France, — 
advising him to look to his interests, — and addressed 
to him as Lieutenant General. And here is the 
parchment commission of Captain Martin of the 
Clement, to carry supplies to La Tour, signed only 
1 Compare Hutchinson, p. 131. 


A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY. 197 


two months since by the Vice Admiral of France, in 
which La Tour is styled His Majesty’s Lieutenant 
General of Acadia. 

Nor can it rightfully be said that we are to hear 
Charnac^’s story first. We are to help first, as Abra- 
ham did Lot in his distress, then judge of the justice 
afterwards. Moreover, we have heard Charnacd 
against La Tour by our traders ; and Charnac^ is in 
the wrong. Besides, we will offer him parley before 
we fight. 

This has, also, all the merits of a religious war. 
There can be no work more noble than that of Mad- 
ame La Tour in the conversion of the Indians ; there 
can be no greater safeguard against the Jesuits in 
America than to aid her. She has Protestantism 
enough for the two, even if La Tour himself were 
positively a Eomanist, which he is not ; at worst, he 
is only a nominal Catholic from the necessity of his 
office. Charnac^ has been educated by the Jesuits ; 
he is a Jesuit; he obeys the orders of the Jesuits; 
Captain Hawkins, here, knows what the Jesuits are, 
he has seen them in Spain ; and Dr. Cotton says that 
the Friars on the Clement are not Jesuits, that they 
are Franciscans, and that St. Francis was a harmless 
and rather pious lunatic. 

There can be no danger to the colony, or lack of 
prudence, in allowing La Tour to help himself, — hire 
men and ships, and pay his own bills cash down, — 
at this time. There is no real danger. We run no 
risk. And, even if there were danger, enterprising 


198 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


business men are accustomed to assuming risks, and 
our merchants run risks every voyage they make to 
Spain or England, and why not to Acadia ? 

It was, after hearing all these arguments extended 
throughout two long summer days, determined by 
the authorities — not to give permission to any to go 
and make war, oh, no, — but to such as La Tour 
hired the Governor was to give leave to go : there 
being a law that no one should go out of the patent 
by land or sea, without first obtaining permission of 
the Governor, or his deputy. 

This decision the Governor was very careful to 
explain in a long written communication to the mal- 
contents from the country.^ The main part of the 
arguments would have been in favor of aiding Char- 
nac4 in an attack on La Tour, if he had applied first 
with the money in his pocket, — he being in as much 
distress ” to take the beleaguered Castle as La Tour 
was to hold it. 

You may see, said Winthrop, that there is a wide 
difference between giving men a commission to fight, 
and giving them leave to be hired to fight. Is it not 
the calling of ship owners to go out for hire ? They 
may without impropriety hire out to La Tour. For- 
eign nations allow their citizens to go as soldiers to 
other nations. Our Bostonians have the same right, 
if they get their money. Although we have a law, 
dating back to June 14, 1631, that no Boston money 

1 Eleven octavo pages — of Latin, and Scripture, and sopliisms — 
in Hutchinson. 


A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY. 199 

shall be paid out, even to buy food of any strange 
ship, so that it is liable to be carried off never to 
return, without the Governor’s permission; — I am 
unable to find any law to prevent us from giving 
La Tour liberty to spend what money he has in 
Boston. 

The fact is, that General La Tour had come into 
Boston at the right door. The La Tours became the 
fashion. Madame was heavenly, and the General was 
earthly ; and between them both they made a perfect 
match. The town was all agog with the La Tours for 
a few days. Jonathan Negoos, David Offley, Eobert 
Keayne, Thomas Munt, Bartholomew Pasmer, and 
other great merchants wxre to furnish provisions and 
munitions for the expedition, which was a dead cer- 
tainty as soon as there appeared to be money in 
it. La Tour had done nothing but lay pipes for the 
debate; and he did it by making it for the interest 
of leading men to league with him. Those who could 
make a profit of a hundred per cent upon their mer- 
chandise, and twenty-five more by exchange, in those 
early days, were all with La Tour to a man. 

Had Charles la Tour been brought up among the 
courtiers of France or the politicians of England, he 
could not have had at more perfect command the 
power to adapt himself to every man he met. At 
the Three Mariners, he expressed himself in regard 
to Charnacd in phraseology less conservative, by far, 
than that employed by Gibones, who, as the boys 
said, stood a fair chance to become an elder in the 


200 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


church. To Captain Hawkins he spoke in particular 
of the learning, the skill, the zeal, the artfulness, the 
cunning, the intrigue of Charnacd, — who, as a Jesuit 
of the Jesuits, would within ten years make torches 
of Protestant Boston seamen upon the Acadian coast. 
To all, he made a great deal out of that Scotch baro- 
netcy which his over-confident father had procured for 
him from King Charles ^ for surrendering a fort which 
he never surrendered. That his father was an English- 
man went for something. His relationships, his titles, 
his land grants, his holdings, were of a variety to 
meet any reasonable demands made upon him. La 
Tour was in a land where titles could be made to 
tell, and he used them. 

He could carry on a conversation alone, with as 
many dramatis personce as any playwright. “ Who are 
you now, Charles la Tour ? ” Whom do you want 1 
I am made up to suit circumstances.” 

La Tour in visiting Boston came as an old settler, 
having roughed it for a score of years before that town 
w^as founded. He did whatever was needful to main- 
tain his footing. Leaving others to debate the equi- 
ties, he allowed nothing to hinder his strict attention 
to his own interests, — whatever might betide the 
remainder of mankind. 

It w^as not known at that time how much or how 
little he was controlled by a profound moral sense, 
or whether he had that commodity. Ko Jesuit ever 
crossed the Atlantic more artful than Charles la Tour 
1 Hanney’s Acadia, pp. 112, 118. 


A PURITAN DEBATING SOCIETY, 201 


in winning his way, or less consulting his conscience. 
The great interest of the La Tours was always in 
his mind, as a “Superior” to whom he must render 
prompt, unquestioning, and irresponsible obedience. 

To him the hub of the universe was Monsieur 
Charles la Tour, Knight of the Order of the King, 
Lieutenant General of Kew France, and Baronet of 
Kova Scotia, Sir Charles de St. Etienne, Seigneur de 
St. Deniscourt. 

It was, even at that remote day, plain sailing for 
such a man in Boston. 


202 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXIV. 

SETTING SAIL. 

T TEAYY FISTED, solid, substantial, hard-money 
Hawkins, and Major Gibones, executed the 
contract with General La Tour, for four ships, thirty- 
eight guns, and one hundred and forty-two men. The 
ship owners were to have $2600, for two months ser- 
vice. The}^ were to be made ready for the tenth of 
July. The Greyhound, the Philip and Mary, and 
the Increase, were put in order for the voyage ; the 
Seabridge also, which had just returned, June 23, 
from England, having on board twenty children of 
the colonists, who had been sent at the expense of 
the Puritan churches at home. The children were 
set ashore, and the soldiers filed in. 

The town was small, but there were many servants 
in proportion to the population. These made up a 
larger body of soldiery than would ordinarily be found 
among so few houses ; which were it is likely more 
than the two score named by Josselyn, who was dis- 
gruntled for the little hospitality shown him. The 
village lay upon the cove with no house save Dr. 
Cotton’s west of Tremont street, and hardly half a 


SETTING SAIL. 


203 


dozen houses far southward towards the present 
Essex and Boylston. 

In the desire to emigrate, and receive the high 
wages of a new country, the poorer class of laborers, 
men and women, sold their services for a term of 
years ; and their labor was made profitable in de- 
veloping varied industries of sea and land. Any 
property holder of two to three thousand pounds 
employed ten or twelve lusty servants ; ^ and there 
was not a house in Boston however small its means 
without one or two ; and five or six was a common 
number, 2 — many being negroes worth from £8 to 
£16. When therefore Governor Winthrop, a month 
before La Tour’s arrival, had the general May train- 
ing, two regiments of the Bay colony were mustered 
at Boston, comprising a thousand men, of whom the 
most were serving men. Their skilful management 
in divers sorts of skirmishes under Colonel Dudley 
excited great admiration. 

General La Tour having expressed the desire to 
land his one hundred forty people from the Clement, 
for exercise, he was permitted to do so, if in small 
companies so as not to alarm the women and chil- 
dren.3 The Governor did not feel afraid, since, during 
La Tour’s entire stay, he never took his constitutional 
even, between his house and the windmill at the foot 
of Summer street by the Milk street lane, without 

1 ’New England’s Prospect, 1634. 

2 Report French Protestant Refugee, 1687. 

8 Drake’s Boston, p. 270. 


204 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


a body guard of halberdiers and musketeers ; he in- 
tended to run no risk after his scare on the twelfth 
of June. 

When General La Tour exercised his French sol- 
diers, the Governor, not perhaps as a precaution but 
out of civility to his guests, — much as the armed 
shallops went down to the garden with Houtchin 
to escort La Tour to town, — ordered out the entire 
village military. They got together a hundred and 
fifty, it being a busy time of year for the servants. 
It was upon this grand occasion, that men were en- 
listed for the Acadian service, and first formed into a 
line. Elder Oliver’s old Pequot war-horse, lest he 
should become excited by the martial music, was 
safely secured in the pound, which stood upon the 
site now occupied by the Atlantic Monthly on Park 
street; and the town’s cows were kept well down 
upon the Back Bay near Fox hill, so that — being 
accustomed to seeing the well disciplined soldiers of 
Dudley — they need not be frightened at the new 
recruits. 

The British flag, — with the St. George cross cut 
out by fiery Endicott one day when he wanted to 
rebuke Satan in the Popish symbol, — was flying 
over the Wishing Stone, near what is now the junc- 
tion of Beacon and Joy, where so many joyous young 
Puritans had plighted their loves ; ^ and under its 

1 All that a maiden had to do, was to walk around the stone 
nine times, then stand upon the stone, and silently wish ; and the 
young man would pop immediately. 


SETTING SAIL. 


205 


briglit color, never so beautiful to her as now, Con- 
stance sat with Mistress Gibones to see the parade. 
It is one of the Gibones family traditions, that Mar- 
garett and Constance walked around the stone, and 
stood upon it, like school girls, wishing well to the 
expedition. 

The first man to take La Tour’s money, from Israel 
Fife the recruiting officer, was Edward Palmer, who 
had been only just now released from the stocks; he 
remarked to Fife in a low tone that he wanted to air 
himself in some other jurisdiction. He had spent two 
days, and found all the material, in making new 
stocks, upon order, for the colony ; but when he 
brought in his bill £1 135. 7d., the authorities said it 
was too much ; fined him £5 ; and set him in the stocks. 

The second was Bobby Bartlett, whose tongue had 
been in a cleft stick, the day before, — as he stood 
an hour in the Market place at the head of King 
street, — for swearing in the ordinary style of those 
who did not belong to the church. He, too, wanted 
to get out of the jurisdiction. 

Danyell Mawd, George Curtys, servant to John 
Cotton, Barnaby Dorryfall, one of Gibones’ men 
who had hurried up from the farm at Pullen Point, 
William Coursar a coblar, John Gallop a fisherman, 
Holbech Eukas, John Button the mylner, Eichard 
Bulgar a bricklayer, and Myles Tame leather dresser, 
all members of Dr. Cotton’s church, next came for- 
ward in a body, — Curtys having a bonus to recruit 
in the church, to give character to the company. 


206 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Captain John Chaddock, a son of the Governor of 
Bermuda, came forward with a number of substantial 
citizens, men of property, some of whom wished to 
see Acadia and its resources for themselves. Among 
them Mrs. Gibones recognized John ISTewdigate, Wil- 
liam Hailes tone, Eobert Blott, Eichard Straine, John 
Lugg, and Walter Sinet. 

Ninety-two soldiers were soon made up, Gibones 
and Hawkins furnishing fifty- two seamen. There 
were so many eager to go, that there was at the last 
a struggle made ; the last two who — in the crowd — 
could get the attention of Fife, were William Beer 
and John Milk. 

The French soldiers from the Clement delighted 
the English by the perfection of their discipline. 
They came near creating a serious panic, when, in 
their exercises, they suddenly threw down their guns, 
drew their swords, and appeared to make a charge.^ 
The children ran ; and the women screamed, — Theo- 
dosia Hay swooning on the grass. Lieutenant Fife, 
who upon Hawkins’s request had received a Captain’s 
commission, drew his sword and turned to his awk- 
ward squad, shouting, — “ Stand firm.” Cotton Flacke 
and Gamaliell Wayte turned pale ; and acted so fool- 
ishly that Fife persuaded them to stay at home, in 
which he was warmly seconded by their good wives 
Penelope and Elynor. Penelope Flacke told Cotton, 
if Charnace was going to act like that, she did not 
want him to go within ten foot of him. 

1 Winthrop, II, 108. 


SETTING SAIL. 


207 


General La Tour informed the Governor, that it 
was a great surprise to him to see so many soldiers 
as the Boston militia gathered in one town and so 
well armed; and that he never saw such training 
before, and that he would not have believed it pos- 
sible if he had not seen it^ 

It all ended with an invitation from the Boston 
officers to the French officers to go home with them 
to dinner; and the soldiers invited the French sol- 
diers. A dinner was given to such of the La Tour 
recruits as cared to partake of it, under the shade 
trees near the sink hole where the cows were watered 
in the middle of the pasture. 

The Constable Houtchin had been round town and 
got up a corner in beans, as soon as he learned the 
decision of the Governor to let La Tour have the 
men. He earned in this way enough to replace 
with gold the brass tip of five or six inches at the 
top of his black official staff of five feet and a half. 
It is painful to complete the record, — he was set in 
the stocks, fined and deprived of his office for indulg- 
ing in the luxury ; if all this had happened in season, 
he too would have gone out of the jurisdiction. 

Happily it was not known upon that day what the 
final effect would be of the rise in beans ; but great 
indignation was expressed by some of the poorer 
families, particularly by Charity Brown and Thomas 
Grubbe whose sons had enlisted. 

The enterprising Ann Euby and Elizabeth Trout, 


1 Compare Drake’s Boston, p. 270. 


208 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


who then occupied Blaxton’s log cahin/ sent their 
hoys roTjnd with fresh fish balls, well browned, two 
for a penny, — and Joe Takouchin was instructed by 
La Tour to buy them out for his new soldiers. The 
Gibones family and the La Tours picnicked with the 
" recruits. If the baked beans did not quite go round 
for a second serving, the Indian pudding, the brown 
bread, and the bushels of doughnuts, allowed no one 
to lack. ^^One sees many people of good appetite 
in this land,” remarked an eminent Frenchman, of 
the Bostonians ; ^ and La Tour, a good eater, and 
hearty, as if brought up on English roast beef, re- 
marked to the Major, that, if the truth must be told, 
it was the report which M. Eochet had brought of 
Madame Gibones’ cooking, which had led him to run 
away from the fort, where Charnac^ must suppose 
him to be still starving. 

The French soldiers discharged their fire-arms as a 
salute at the landing ; and the recruits embarked for 
Long Island. This was the night in which, by the 
old records, voices were heard issuing from the hill 
upon the west of Winthrop Island, and sparkles of 
fire were seen upon the height. It was believed that 
the demons were let loose.^ One minister wrote 
Winthrop, asking him where his conscience was that 
he could be so careless of the good of the State ; and 
another said in his sermon, that the streets of Boston 
would yet run blood on this account. 

1 Between Louisburg Square and Charles Street. 

2 Fr. Prot. Ref. Report, p. 33. 

8 King’s Hand Book. 


SETTING SAIL. 


209 


The Governor and Dr. Cotton and their wives were 
at the breakfast given by Major and Mrs. Gibones 
upon the fourteenth of July ; after which the La Tours 
sailed with their fleet. 

M. Eochet, when alone with the General in sailing 
down the harbor, joked him about his attending the 
Protestant ser\T.ces so regularly with Governor Win- 
throp, during his entire stay in Boston ; and repeated 
Dr. Cotton’s remark, anticipating his conversion to 
Protestantism by the influence of Madame La Tour. 

“ I am a Puritan,” was the answer, “ in one thing. 
They censured Governor Endicott, when he cut the 
cross out of the English flag ; then they doubled, fox 
like, and used the mutilated flag ; and will have no- 
thing else in Boston. But down here on the Castle, 
you see the cross still flying, to hinder hostile criti- 
cism by British officers who may put in here. I am 
Protestant or Catholic, as may best serve my turn ; 
just as Winthrop keeps two flags flying to please 
everybody.” 

Constance disembarked at the Isles of Shoals, 
where she chartered the barque Sea Spray of the 
Cutts Brothers, and selected a cargo of fish for La 
Eochelle, whence she expected to procure more sol- 
diers and colonists and munitions of war. 

In her youth, with the world before her, she could 
not entertain gloomy thoughts ; but when she was 
alone, now the first time for so long, save in the 
quiet chamber overlooking the Town Cove in Boston, 
she felt that strange sense of moral widowhood, which 
u 


210 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA 


comes to so many noble women, when they cease to 
hope against hope, and confess to themselves that 
there is a deep gulf morally between husband and 
wife, a gulf which possibly will never be bridged in 
time or eternity. 

With her Huguenot training, the spiritual interests 
of her home were of surpassing moment ; everything 
else sinking out of sight in the comparison. 

She sat long upon the shelving rocks, looking 
westward; the coloring upon the water not fading 
out until nearly ten o’clock. It brought vividly to 
mind her honeymoon evenings at Pentagouet. How 
strange it seemed -to her, that Charnace had now 
lived there for many months, and had there plotted 
to destroy her home, and there, — most dreadful 
thought of all, — had murmured her name in ac- 
cents of love, murmured it to the winter birds in the 
solitary woods, like a love-sick boy. 

The terrible domestic tragedies of the Eeformation 
and the generations next following, came crowding 
in upon her memory. Of some she had personally 
known. Many in the circle of her acquaintance 
were the children of a parentage, who were once 
broken of all their hopes by religious divisions, — 
the wife one side and husband the other, or the 
mother one side and her child the other, or lovers 
separated and finally contending against each other. 
It had been so, over no small part of the civilized 
world. It was the separation of Calvin, Luther, 
Zw ingle, Huss, Wyclif, Knox, from the Komanist ; a 


SETTING SAIL. 


211 


separation of kinsfolk upon moral grounds, — a separa- 
tion that each of the divided friends would risk death 
to maintain, so long as the religious difference might 
exist. What anxieties, what sorrows, what heart- 
breakings, what groaning prayers, what deaths were 
undergone for domestic friends in those grim ages. 

This gloomy historic background did not, however, 
make it less a sorrow to Constance. She moaned aloud 
by the low murmuring summer sea ; and mingled her 
tears with the salt spray, which rose now and then 
when a heavy wave fell upon the rocks at her feet. 
Had she rejected Charnacd to marry a man taunted 
by the Puritans as an idolater ? She was glad that 
she had stayed in her chamber to pray, instead of 
going into the meeting house to hear those plain- 
spoken men, whose words her husband had rehearsed 
to her with laughter, as though it were all a joke, as 
in truth he took it. He said that they meant nothing 
by it, except to hinder the expedition ; that they cared 
nothing about it. 

But upon the heart of Constance the words fell 
like clods upon a coffin lid, the coffin of her husband. 
He was as much separated from her as if dead. His 
laughter seemed grim, and almost demoniacal. Per- 
haps she was tired, had undergone too much nervous 
strain. She had felt anxious for her child. She had 
felt so anxious, heaven alone knew how anxious, for 
a quickened moral sensibility in her husband. She 
had prayed so much for this. How she was borne 
down by the chagrins of the hour. 


212 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


With all her womanly nature she had deliberately 
crushed the instincts of her heart reaching out toward 
Charnac^, and had said, No ; she would not marry a 
papist. She had married Charles la Tour as much as 
for any reason because he was a Protestant ; not cer- 
tainly because he was the deliberate choice of her 
heart, — as Charnac4 was, whom she loved during so 
many years, vainly hoping to bring him back to his 
mother’s God without a pope to stand between him 
and his Maker. And when it slowly dawned upon 
her after her marriage, that, — in the wreck of all 
earthly hopes by the destruction of her father’s house 
and by the death of her brotlier, — she had pledged 
her word to La Tour without sufficient knowledge of 
him, she had wearied the heavens in praying for him ; 
and had exhausted every persuasive power upon him. 
And with what result ? 

The dreadful words of that man whom they called 
the Cobbler of Agawam, Nathaniel Ward, had rung 
in her ears : he had merely told the truth, when he 
spoke of her husband as a carnal man. Would not 
Paul have added, that Charles la Tour was at enmity 
with God ? Conscious as she was of her own moral 
defects, Constance had never been willing to think 
such thoughts of her husband ; perhaps she had been 
too lenient in her judgment. But these blunt Puri- 
tans had merely used tl^e sonorous and fearful Bible 
phrases; which might be the premonitory rumbling 
of a day of wrath. Her husband had always said, 
“ Yes,” “ Yes,” to all her tender loving words, and 


SETTING SAIL, 


213 


pleadings, in relation to a high moral plane of life, 
living wholly unto God. But she had never known 
him to he so utterly devoid of all moral sensibility as 
now. 

Is not an idolater, she asked herself, better than a 
carnal man; a miseducated perverted moral sense 
better than none ? Charnacd had a superabundance 
of spiritual life, he was charged with it ; he would 
act according to conscience in the end. If he had 
not persisted in giving his conscience to some one 
else; if he had remained master of it; if he had 
worked out his own salvation with the God working 
in him to will and to do; in short, if he had not 
bound himself or rather remained quiet while some 
one else had bound him, hand and foot, and thrown 
him like a bundle to be ticketed and used at will by 
the Order of Jesus, — she would have married him. 
But she had refused to be so unequally yoked ; she 
had refused him, — only to yoke herself, when her 
eyes were blinded with tears, to an unbeliever; 
and now all the evil consequences predicted by 
Paul had come to pass, fone end of the yoke was 
hurh the other low; and it was hard to draw life’s 



Like a meteor streaming across the sky, casting a 
strange light upon land and sea, then sinking out of 
sight forever, the thought flashed upon the mind of 
Constance, that if, after all, she had followed her 
heart and married Charnacd, he would have been 
finally led by his love rather than by his theology ; 


214 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


that the ties by which his loving teacher had tied 
him to the Scarlet Woman, the Mother Church, 
would have been first slackened, then loosened for- 
ever, if she had married him and bestowed upon him 
one half the wealth of affection, the sedulous devo- 
tion, the days and nights of prayer, that she had 
bestowed upon the carnal La Tour. 

This unwifely thought alarmed her ; and she rose 
from the dark sea, with its planetary lights dancing 
upon the ground swell, and retired to her lodging. 
It would be well, she thought, if now during two 
months she could be alone upon the great sea, and 
for many months comparatively alone. She would 
still besiege the heavens; and gain the best of 
spiritual gifts for her husband. And she would 
place the ocean between herself and Charnaca 
She would be loyal to her husband’s earthly in- 
terests, and so hope to gain his interest in some- 
thing higher. She would live for her child, from 
whom their terrible domestic peril — fighting for 
their home — now separated her; it was indeed a 
happy providence, that Henrietta, so domestic, so 
affectionate, so wise, could care for him. 

With such thoughts she entered upon her weeks 
of voyaging ; entered into the midst of the sea with 
her Guardian Angel, and with that Presence which 
was to her more than all earthly loves, the Heavenly 
Bridegroom. 


PASSAOEEWAKEAG, 


215 


XXV. 

PASSAGEEWAKEAG. 

HARNACfi carried to the mouth of the St. John 



a pile of old Troubadour verses ; the Cid ; Pe- 
trarch ; and even Orlando Eurioso, Boccaccio, and 
Eabelais ; Montaigne ; Dante ; and, for the construc- 
tion of a travesty and comedy, Calvin’s Institutes. 
The Comedy of the Eeformation was enacted upon 
the evening of the fourteenth of July; Fra Marie 
playing the part of Luther, Eoland Capon the part of 
Calvin, and Charnacd figuring as the Pope. It had a 
great run in Paris, the winter following, where it was 
brought out under the author’s supervision. Between 
his summer-time light reading and play writing, his 
fishing, and hunting — for which he was now in better 
mood than in midwinter — the weeks of beleaguering 
the La Tour Castle wore away very pleasantly. 

When Captain Hawkins and Israel Fife appeared, 
Charnacd was in the midst of a knot of ecclesiastic 
and military comrades, under an awning upon his 
quarter deck, reading to them aloud that Canto of 
Dante’s Inferno, in which the poet peered into the 
depths, and saw the Great Dragon grinning over the 


216 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


satisfactory horrors in the ever ascending circles of 
the amphitheatre of Woe around him. 

"'Here comes the Dragon, wing and wing,’^ cried 
Capon, upon seeing the Puritan fleet. 

It required no time to decide what to do. They 
hove anchor, dropped down on the tide; and the 
blockade was ended. 

For six weeks the Castle had been as silent as a 
tomb sealed for ages ; and as little showing signs of 
life, save that the Lilies of France were always flying. 
How suddenly, as the sound of the resurrection trum- 
pet, every bastion burst into fire, saluting La Tour’s 
return to the river. To Henrietta was accorded the 
honor of first touching a gun. 

Although La Tour had added to his fleet the armed 
pinnace Henrietta, picked up at the Shoals, outward 
bound for Spain, yet with the Clement and the four 
Puritans, they could not all, even with a fair wind, 
spread over any considerable area. The tide being in 
favor of Charnac^, he had no difficulty in making his 
escape by an early start, before his new enemy could 
close upon him. Neither did General La Tour, having 
raised the blockade, wish to risk the damages of an 
open sea fight. 

The French, by their local knowledge of the tide 
and of prevailing winds, and of channels between 
islands, kept clear of their foes, who chased them into 
the Penobscot.! Charnacd sought to make Biguyduce, 

1 There is a curious discrepancy between Winthrop and Hutch- 
inson upon this point, as to where Charnace led his pursuers. 


PASSAGEEWAKEAQ. 


217 


to bring his ships under shelter of Pentagotiet, hut 
La Tour under cover of night secured such position for 
the Seabridge and Increase as to compel his enemy 
to make the trysting place of ghosts at Belfast, then 
known as Passageewakeag ; where Charnacd grounded 
two of his ships to prevent their capture, — the others 
escaping down the west channel. 

Charnacd hastily threw up intrenchments upon the 
present town-site. Captain Hawkins sent up a letter 
from Governor Winthrop; but Charnacd refused to 
open it, — since it was not addressed to him by his 
official title as Lieutenant General for the King. 

General La Tour now landed his troops from the 
Clement ; and, with thirty volunteers from the Boston 
force, fell with such fury upon Charnacd that the en- 
emy broke for the spruce and disappeared, leaving 
three men dead in the trenches. Charnacd, well 
armed, retired slowly with his face to the foe. 

It being no part of his contract, Hawkins would 
not aid in a land assault. And, — since Israel Fife had 
at a small premium taken a moderate war-risk upon 
such of his company as were best able to pay, — 
sixty-two of the Boston set gave La Tour only their 
moral support ; standing soberly and well armed upon 
their decks, picking salt fish out of their teeth, it being 
just after breakfast on a Saturday morning. Enough, 
however, is as good as more. The thirty, plucky 
enough to volunteer, were enough; and not one of 
them received a scratch. Three young men of the La 
Eochelle troop were wounded. 


218 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Captain Fife, however, who had been so prudent of 
the lives of his men as to form them into a reserve 
corps in the morning, undertook a night expedition 
requiring ready wit without risk. The solitary prisoner 
secured from Charnac^’s trenches, was taken in hand 
by Fife and by the officers of his ship, the slow sailing 
Greyhound, who had been jeered at for having been 
a little late ever since they left Long Island. They 
sharply questioned the Breton, who rejoiced in the 
cognomen Lancelot Vitet, as to the depth of water 
where a French pinnace lay, in the mouth of the 
Biguyduce under the guns of the fort. By a little 
brandy and no great amount of silver, he was per- 
suaded to act as guide to Captain Fife, — the night 
promising to be dark. 

Landing with two boat-loads of soldiers upon the 
west side of the Magabiguyduce peninsula, Fife found 
his way, cautiously guarding against treachery, to the 
mud-flats of the Biguyduce, it being then low tide ; 
and they marched stealthily to the channel side of 
the pinnace, the Castor, which had been left by the 
tide. Vitet in a low voice called to the watch for 
a ladder. The watch was covered by muskets, and 
pronounced to be dead if he should resist ; and he 
was informed that fire would be set to the vessel at 
once if the ladder was not forthcoming. As soon as 
the tide served, the Castor and the Puritans sailed 
away from the fort guns before daybreak. The cargo 
of the Castor had been made up for France, com- 
prising four hundred beaver skins, and four hundred 


PASSAGEEWAKEAO. 


219 


moose hides ; which, according to Winthrop,^ were 
sold by outcry in Boston, and the prize money divided 
among the soldiers and sailors of the expedition. 

The Philip and Mary, — Captain Hawkins’s ship, — 
returned at La Tour’s invitation to the St. John, to 
load with the coal of Grand Lake; which also was 
sold by the outcry and divided. The more substantial 
business men of the expedition went upon this trip 
to Jemsek and Grand Lake; and on their return 
were handsomely entertained in the Castle La Tour; 
Henrietta in the absence of Madame La Tour, offering 
the hospitality of the house, as best she could after 
so long a siege. 

General La Tour and his little child and nurse, 
with Claude la Tour and his wife, embarked in 
Constance’s shallop, the Sable, to accompany Captain 
Hawkins down the Bay; thinking to cruise near 
Cape Sable until Constance should appear in the Sea 
Spray. They had not long to wait. She had already 
spoken the Philip and Mary, and learned the success 
of the expedition. 

The men of Massachusetts returned in high feather. 
The country members bore their chagrin in silence. 
Governor Winthrop was more popular than ever. 
The codfish smiled so perceptibly, that the skin was 
drawn into that perennial pucker which it now wears 
in the Hall of Eepresentatives. 

Matthew Hanney, who would not risk his own 
skip but urged his rival Hawkins to go, now ad- 
1 II. 383. 


220 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


mitted to Ensign lyons that he ought to have risked 
it ; but he changed his tune, and said that the 
State was foolish, and that the Governor never 
should have allowed it, when he heard of the anger 
of Charnac^. 

The besieger had been surprised at the ability of 
La Tour to persuade the prudent Puritans into a 
course, which was made safe only by the fact that 
France had just then too much to do to give suitable 
attention to American affairs. 

Fra Marie was disguised as a civilian, and sent 
to Boston with a saucy and savage letter to the 
Governor, and a claim upon the Colony for £8000 
damages. 

“ Do not haggle with them,” said Charnac^ curling 
his lip. " Take whatever they are mean enough to 
give. Make no fuss about a little money. But look 
well at their fortifications. France may have use for 
the information some day ; or I shall.” 

The people of the Bay having learned something 
of French compliments, were very hospitable to Char- 
nac4’s envoy. The Governor entertained him with 
wine and sweetmeats; and allowed him the use of 
the gubernatorial yard for exercise, it being Sunday 
when M. Marie arrived at the Puritan mansion. The 
authorities made a commercial treaty with him, so 
that Boston shipping would have new avenues for 
trade ; and they promised to make him a present. 

One Captain Cromwell of Boston, having in priva- 
teering captured a Spanish pirate, found in her hold 


PA S SAG EE WAKE A G. 


221 


a sedan elaborately carved and gilded, worth £50, 
intended for the sister of the Viceroy of Mexico ; not 
knowing what to do with it, when he returned home, 
he gave it to Governor Winthrop. Winthrop, not 
knowing what to do with it, made a present of it to 
Charnacd. 

The Governor sent with it a long letter about 
Christian duty; and stated, that it was one of the 
independent principles by which those who controlled 
the Colony were governed, to sell for cash. 

A small amount of powder was burned, as a salu- 
tation, when the envoy took his chair, and left for 
Acadia. 


222 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXVI. 


VERSAILLES. 


POX the day that Charnace sent Fra Marie to 



^ Boston, he embarked for France, — seeking to 
enter the St. John castle via Versailles. The one 
great thought which filled his mind, — as he began, 
continued, and ended his voyage, — was that he had 
been in small business. 

Did he not carry that in his own heart, which 
made him despise entering into a petty quarrel with 
the sectaries of the Bay, or a St. John’s fur trader ? 
There was Constance in America, and she was worth 
living for, contending for; aside from that, he would 
throw up all the cat-skins, and filthy Indians, and the 
bickering colonists of a new world, — settle down 
in some quiet district of France, to study. If Con- 
stance were only in France, he would do this and 
let the world take its course. What a pity that she 
should be immured in the feudal hold of that un- 
spiritual, coarse-grained La Tour. It would be truly 
a revival of the spirit of chivalry, if he should arouse 
a crusade to rescue her. 

Of happy temperament were his old mates, who 
greeted his return. He yielded to the influences of 


VERSAILLES. 


223 


the hour, and spent charmed weeks in the recreation 
of 'intellectual companionship and the literary trea- 
sures of the capital. The eminent divines of the Or- 
der greeted him almost as an equal ; they were the 
most genial of men, of sunny hearts and unclouded 
brows, — to them the world was apparently “ congru- 
ous,” “ obedient,” so that they little needed to have a 
care. How grand it seemed to the Acadian Governor 
to get somewhere, — out of the woods, into the town. 
Even the forty houses of Boston were contemptible in 
comparison with Paris. What then might be said of 
solitary Pentagoiiet, and the shaggy forests which 
covered the back of a whole hemisphere ? He could 
now for the moment forget the wild creatures and 
wild men of America. How delightful would be the 
day, when the bridle in his mouth should be so guided 
by his Superior that he could quit the Hew World 
forever. To-day, however, and to-morrow, he would 
do his duty. The reward could not be far off. 

Conscious of his own great powers, he could not 
but look forward to the twenty-five years next com- 
ing. How short seemed the period since Eichelieu 
was a soldier seizing the crosier of the Bishop of 
LuQon, — now risen to such undreamed-of heights 
of power. If, in the Acadian woods, he had dared 
think the claims of the papacy inimical to the free 
development of individual manhood, he was glad now 
at least that he belonged to a body whose presence 
was felt throughout the world. He did not remem- 
ber that he had ever seen a meaner set of people on 


224 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


the footstool, than the small-minded, bitter-spirited 
Protestants of the New World. The ancient Church, 
after all, offered the only sphere for really able men. 

Charnacd stood well in France ; being connected 
with the most noble families of Bas-Berry,^ as well 
as with Eichelieii.2 The Cardinal was the more cor- 
dial to Charnace on account of the surpassing ability 
of his uncle the great ambassador, who if not the first 
of his age was easily first in France, giving his coun- 
try an honorable place among the nations. 

The points against La Tour, presented to Eichelieu 
by Charnac^ and his genial Jesilit friends, were, — 
that he had fortified with treasonable intent; that 
one of his fortresses was upon property belonging to 
Charnac4; that he had made an offensive and defen- 
sive league with the traditional enemies of France — 
the English ; that he had entered into a league with 
Protestants against the interests of the Church ; 
that he and his allies had made an attack upon 
Charnac4, killing certain of his men, destroying his 
property, and depriving him of his rights. These 
charges were, — so far as might be needful to make 
up a case for the King’s approval, — supported by 
forged documents of particular proof. 

La Tour’s commission as Lieutenant General was 
revoked. He was formally charged with treason. 

1 Eameau, p. 68. 

2 Murdoch’s Nova Scotia I. 92. Hanney’s Acadia, p. 144, men- 
tions it as a disadvantage to La Tour that he was not personally 
known in France ; his rival having influence with the Cardinal. 


VERSAILLES. 225 

And to Charnacd was given authority to seize his 
rival and hold him for trial. 

Shall we include his wife ? ” asked Eichelieu. 
“ I hear that she is a very able woman.” 

“Yes,” answered Charnacd, after dreaming a mo- 
ment. “ She is no traitor. No one is more loyal to 
France than she ; but she is now at one with La Tour. 
Yes, you may as well insert her name until we catch 
them both. She will be loyal enough, if we can be 
rid of La Tour; and, if she is so, her name can 
be dropped before trial. No records are kept, I 
believe.” 

“No records have been kept; I keep records,” 
answered Eichelieu, “but of this we will keep no 
record after the King signs the order.” ^ 

In respect to the means for carrying on the war 
for arresting the fortified La Tour, it appeared that the 
Hundred Associates were practically bankrupt, — 
the prescience of Constance proving true sooner 
than might have been anticipated. The loss had 
been in the Canadian not the Acadian part of New 
France ; at Quebec it had been so great that not one 
of them would put in more money. In fact they^ 
had been obliged to turn over Quebec to Emery de 
Caen, the Huguenot, who had lost so heavily in the 
embryo city when the Jesuits came in and changed 

1 There is a difference between the two leading authorities. Mur- 
doch, I. 99, indicates, that there were no specific charges ; that the 
action against La Tour was obtained by influence ; Hanney, p. 1 46, 
that the slanders against La Tour, upon which the charge of treason 
was brought, were discovered after the death of his rival. 

15 


226 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


the rule. De Caen was to reclaim the trading post 
from the English, who had given it up by treaty; 
and was to haye the fur monopoly during one year 
then return it to the Associates. Under these cir- 
cumstances, the eminent divines with whom Charnacd 
associated, — and to whom he looked for counsel, and 
who appeared to prize his counsels so highly, — were 
not at a loss what to do. 

The beautiful system, of which Charnacd was a 
part, was loose and fast at the same time. He had 
been freed from his vows of poverty in order that he 
might hold property in his own name ; and then by a 
voluntary obedience he would — if obedient — use it 
in the interests of the Church. To this end Charnac4, 
being a relative of M. Eazilly, had at his death bought, 
the Governor’s holdings in Acadia from his brother, 
and although he had taken immediate possession the 
papers had not been passed. The sum was nominal ; 
fourteen thousand livres, with seventeen years in 
which to pay it. Charnac^ was young with the 
world before him; he would have great wealth, a 
kingdom of his own, — but his heart held it for the 
uses of the Church. 

He was now directed, — if the word advised ” is 
not strong enough, — to make a loan, upon this prop- 
erty, from some Protestant merchant for the purpose 
of carrying on the war against Protestantism in 
Acadia. 

As Charnac^ conversed with his uncle at the din- 
ing table, the Baron was pleased to remark, that, “In 


VERSAILLES. 


227 


the courts of Europe, lying is considered the least of 
evils. It is deprived of power to harm, by its univer- 
sality. No one acts upon the supposition that what 
he hears is true. Intelligent persons are governed 
solely by community of interest. Only parties having 
a common interest can be depended upon to tell the 
truth to each other, and that solely in relation to the 
interest common to both.” 

“ It has now come to that pass,” responded the 
General of the Society of Jesus, who had been 
invited to the house to meet young Charnacd, “ that 
the written lies almost outnumber those spoken. 
We have just compiled the statistics of the secrets 
of the confessional, and find that one hundred thou- 
sand persons have confessed forgery in France within 
the past year ; and no one dares estimate the number 
not confessed.” 

Inasmuch as the younger Charnacd had been 
closeted for some days with eminent divines and 
their secretaries in preparing the ruin of his rival ; 
and since he would start in a day or two for La 
Eochelle to initiate a transaction which would not 
unlikely ruin some Huguenot merchant, — he was 
glad to know that his course had the merit of not 
being singular. 

The conversation drifted to the schemes for Ameri- 
can colonization. 

“We are, I believe, at fault in our management,” 
was the proposition of the Governor of Acadia, “in 
the affairs of the Hundred Associates. The com- 


228 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


pany handles Acadia solely for fur ; for the intro- 
duction of religious priests; and sends there from 
France only a hireling population. This method can 
never compete with the English, who make it an 
object for small capitalists to go and invest in the 
country ; and make it easy for poor men to acquire 
property. More than twenty thousand colonists have 
gone to Massachusetts Bay within ten years ; and 
they are a thrifty people. It is only a question of 
time when they will overrun Acadia, unless we can 
people that region with Catholic colonists.” 

'‘Acadia would be crowded with Huguenots,” re- 
plied the General of the Order, “if we would let 
them go. But it would rob the nation of a great 
amount of wealth, and serve only to build up a 
Protestant France over the sea, as the Due de Bohan 
wished to have one in Aunis and Languedoc.” 

“ I have thought of that,” said the Baron ; “ but I 
think, that, when we are stronger at home, Bichelieu 
will not object to sending them ; on the score that it 
may sometime help France to hold America against 
the English. We shall certainly lose our grip, and 
have no New France, unless we can colonize.” 

“Our Catholic population are just as well off here,” 
answered the General ; “ and the plan we have is the 
only one that will work, — to convert the Indians, 
and make them our allies to fight the English.” 

“There is nothing nobler,” replied Charnace the 
younger, “ than the self devotement of our mission- 
aries, facing perils unknown in new areas of the con- 


VERSAILLES. 


229 


tinent; carrying in their hearts, and bearing before 
God, all the woes of the pagan people. And they 
certainly benefit the Indians; raising them in the 
scale a little. But I often fear that our Christianity 
itself will be lost in the forests, by the compromise 
our missionaries make with pagan notions, beliefs 
and customs. There is glory in it for the Church, 
and for our Order, and for the missionaries ; and I 
hope that some of the savages will find the glory of 
the heavenly state, — but of true religion they get 
little.” 

“ Still our entire mission system throughout the 
world would come to a stand-still, if we did not 
accommodate the Christian doctrine and practice to 
the pagan mind and habit,” replied the General. 

“ I presume,” ihterposed the Baron, “ that in New 
France, it will be needful to secure the practical alli- 
ance of the aborigines with our French rulers, as soon 
as possible, in the absence of French emigration. And 
this can be soonest done by the priests; and the 
priests can succeed best by accommodating them- 
selves to the natives, meeting them halfway, or more 
than half ifteed be.” 

Exactly,” answered the General, “we must send 
out influential Frenchmen who will practically be- 
come Indians, in order to become their leaders re- 
ligiously and in war. Then we can hold the country 
against the English Protestants.” 

“ There is one tribe of Indians, who will, I believe, 
have much to say about this fine scheme,” said the 


230 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


young Governor of Acadia, in a modest tone. “I 
fear that the Iroquois, — who murdered Father Bre- 
beuf, — will annihilate those tribes which we most 
depend upon for our influence in Canada; and if 
the English get a permanent footing in Canada, 
then our Catholic Acadia will be ground between 
the upper millstone of the English on the St. Law- 
rence and the lower millstone of the settlers in New 
England, — so that the Iroquois will ultimately dis- 
possess the French King and the Society of Jesus 
together, and give America to the Protestants.” 

God avert it,” was the devout answer of the Gen- 
eral of the Order, assuming the attitude and the tone 
of prayer. 

The hour now struck, and the Acadian Governor, 
bade good night to his host and to Lis Superior; and 
completed his preparations to leave next day for La 
Kochelle. 


£A ROCHELLE. 


231 


XXVII. 


LA EOCHELLE. 



^HE war news, and as the gift of the peace the 


sight of her own child, and of the manly form 
of her hilarious husband, who had grown perceptibly 
taller since he had escaped from the weight of moral 
delinquency heaped upon him by the cobbling theo- 
logians of the Bay, and which had come so near 
crushing not him but his wife, — this toned up the 
heart of Constance as she lost sight of her Sable 
shallop and its precious burden, and found herself 
alone again upon the great deep. She thought of 
her husband’s great capacity for business, his frank- 
hearted, sunny ways ; and she thought of the ages of 
history in her native France, in which it had pleased 
the All Father to light by his sun so great multitude 
of men and women of noble qualities, who certainly 
had little spiritual discernment, — if she herself and 
John Calvin were to judge. The mysteries of the 
final Judgment were yet far off, and she would not 
burden her heart with carrying the woes of to-morrow. 
Committing her home to the care of God, she ceased 
to carry it as a care. 


232 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Day by day, week by week, upon the summer sea, 
Constance was as much at home as the happy Sea 
Spray, which was endowed with life like a bird living 
upon the salt waves, responding to every motion of the 
waters and the winds. The great heart of the ocean 
touched her own heart with new life, and infinite 
hope for the world. “ The sea is His, and He made 
it.” Has He then forgotten the restless, heaving, des- 
olate, expanse of human life, covering the continents, 
as the waters cover the sea beds ? The width of the 
ocean, the presence of the stars, the innumerable 
hosts of heaven gleaming over the vast expanses of 
the world of water, — suggested to the solitary voyager 
the extent of the kingdom of Love, the shining array 
of the saints of all ages, and gave her buoyancy of 
spirit when she left all cares with the Infinite 
Friend. 

For the most part, Constance did not wear out her 
days and nights in seeking to govern the universe ; 
but led a happy, joyous life, — none the less happy 
for the carnal lore her husband had seized as a war 
prize from Charnac4. When his rival took to the 
timber, La Tour could with difficulty hinder his men 
from privately plundering the grounded ships. Joe 
had insisted upon taking as many of Charnacd’s books 
as he could conveniently bring away upon one arm, 
for his mistress. So that Constance, in the middle 
of the sea, had the fun of laughing alone over the 
same pages, which had amused both her and her 
friend when Charnacd first came into possession of 


LA ROCHELLE. 


233 


the books ten years since. Happily the editions of 
Dante and Calvin in folio had been too heavy for 
Joe’s light fingers, and he had left them for Charnacd 
to console himself with. Her thoughtful husband 
had therefore brought to Constance only what the 
world in that day considered its light literature. 

Between the ocean tonic and the delightful conceits 
of her books, Constance was in high spirits, when the 
lone coast birds far at sea told news of the land. 
Welcome was the hour, when the Sea Spray began to 
feel the heavy swell of the Bay of Biscay. 

Making 1° W. of Greenwich, 46° 20' latitude, Con- 
stance began, afar off, to sight the low marshy mono- 
tonous coast; and rising above it La Lanterne still 
standing, — so long a light to the Huguenot mariners, 
and so long a prison into which were cast the most 
eminent of the Protestant merchants in times of reli- 
gious persecution. Tacking this way and that in 
the outer harbor, she strained her eyes for the first 
glimpse of the roof that sheltered her childhood. 

Entering the narrow passage to the inner port, 
between those honorable protectors of the Geneva of 
the West, the forts La Chaine and St. Nicholas, which 
Louis had left standing after pulling down the long 
walls next the sea, she was soon walking the narrow 
winding streets, appearing even then to her a little 
quaint after her threading so long the forest avenues 
of the New World, — streets dark with arcades and 
porches which covered the walks. 

She paused now and then before some small door 


234 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


without ornament, and looked up to the rich carving 
of the upper stories, and remembered the elaborate 
architectural display within the house, where perhaps 
one of her father’s old neighbors had lived. Here 
was the house of the merchant Pierre Jay; there the 
home of Koch Chastaignier whose family dated back 
to the eleventh century; here lived Henri Bau- 
douin the Counsellor, of a family the most important 
in the history of the city, and among the first to 
embrace the reformed faith ; there was the dwelling 
place of Benjamin Faneuil, who had married a rela- 
tive of Constance, Marie the daughter of Andrd 
Bernon. 

Amid these crowding memories, the tears so blinded 
her eyes that it was long before she could read the 
Bible text, which was inscribed over the doorway of 
her old home : Ye are the light of the world.” 

Her youngest brother, then a mere child, met her at 
the door, — Sieur Samuel Bernon, who became a great 
merchant, having enormous warehouses in Quebec ; ^ 
whose son Gabriel Bernon emigrated to America 
upon the revocation of the Edict of Hantes, — 
uttering those memorable words, “ I might have re- 
mained in France, and kept my property, my qua- 
lity, and my titles, if I had been willing to submit 
to slavery.” 

It was in this house, that there was held the first 
meeting for the reformed faith in Lgt Eochelle ; here 
was gathered the nucleus of that great movement 
1 La Honton. 


LA ROCHELLE. 235 

which changed the face of the city,* and marked an 
era in the history of the nation.^ 

When the father of Constance had been threatened 
by the Governor, he replied : — 

“ Sir, you would have me lose my soul. Since it 
is impossible for me to believe what the religion you 
bid me embrace, teaches.” 

“ Much do I care, whether you lose your soul or 
not,” was the reply, “ provided you obey.” 

Falling early in the siege, his body was buried in 
his own garden ; there reposing until the peace, — a 
peace that must have seemed worse than the siege to 
the Huguenot population surviving. 

Not yet were the very foundations of the walls so 
removed that the plow, alluded to in the edict of the 
King, could prepare the land for tillage. The Grand 
Temple of which Henry, Prince of Condd, laid the 
corner stone, which had been so long crowded with a 
vast congregation of Calvinistic worshippers, was now 
a Catholic cathedral. 

The city was still a great religious power; the 
Protestant faith losing little of its grip upon the 
commercial and moral world until a generation later, 
when the dormant cruelties of the decree of Louis XIIT. 
were revived, and nearly two thousand Huguenots 

1 The priests and monks were among the first converts, — 
1542-8 ; and the nuns forsook the cloisters. In 1561, the priests 
of St. Sauveur began matins before daybreak, so as to accommodate 
Protestant worship in the same church. For nearly fifty years fol- 
lowing 1573, there was no other worship in the city than that of 
the Reformers. 


236 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


were ejected from the city at two weeks’ notice, — 
thrown out into floods of rain, — the aged, the babes, 
the bed-ridden. 

Constance found herself dealing with traders of 
great wealth, even after the city had lost its military 
leadership. Many were enlisted in the fur trade and 
the fisheries, and general shipping-business of New 
Trance. La Eochelle was still the great shipping 
port for the Atlantic trade, — even the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries sailing thence. Hardy sailors, and fierce 
soldiers, as well as enterprising tradesmen, had their 
homes in the Huguenot city. Self-poised, well-bal- 
anced, accustomed to think for themselves, to act 
promptly in matters religious or secular, they made 
the best of colonists. 

Almost a stranger in the land of her youth, — so 
great the change in the desolated city within so brief 
a period of time, that it seemed to her that ages had 
elapsed, — Constance became the guest of the Duchess 
de Eohan, Catherine de Purthenai. She it was who 
composed the tragedy of Holofernes, which was rep- 
resented in the midst of the first siege of the city. 
Having lost the principal part of her fortune in the 
recent disasters, she still held herself in position to 
rally those who were true to their convictions in the 
changing times. 

The house of Eohan was blessed with a sound 
physique. The Duchess in advancing years, and her 
daughter Elizabeth, little older than Constance, were 
in sound health ; and the shocks, so terrible, of the 


LA ROCHELLE, 


237 


change in their own home and in their beloved city, 
had told on them little more than the Atlantic waves 
had told upon the French coast; sighs and storms 
and salt tears and wo undings still left substantial 
physical and mental power for life’s service. They, 
too, had been preserved by their unfailing life within 
the life, spirits easily rising above their surroundings 
to commune with superior beings, seeking evermore 
the Supreme Friend, and looking at this world’s af- 
fairs in a large way as related to ages and eternities 
and the universe of God. With them there was a 
present King higher than Louis XIII., a Presence 
needing no pope, a Eevealing Spirit not limited by 
the logic of Calvin. 

Constance found here all the freedom of thought 
which she had found in her transatlantic woods ; and 
the house resounded with song from morning till 
night, as if her myriads of Acadian birds had been 
there. 

As the weeks went by, and her business had pros- 
pered, she sent away her cargo and colonists and sol- 
diers in the Sea Spray, and would now go to London 
to complete her purchases, and return to Acadia. 

It was in this house of Eohan, that Constance was 
conscious of being tempted to thoughts of disloyalty 
toward Castle La Tour. Xot five years had gone by 
since she left her child-hearth; and she had almost 
grown old in that time. Aside from the desolation 
of her old home the great sorrow in her new home 
— weighting her heart — was the irreligious spirit of 


238 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Charles la Tour. The hollowness of the Papacy had 
never seemed to her so ghostly as now, — the uneasy 
spirit of a dead faith filling the cathedral, where she 
had worshipped after the Huguenot method when 
a child. It might have been the contrast, which 
exaggerated the faults of Pome. And now that her 
judgment was ripened, she felt an indefinable dread 
that when Charles la Tour should grow old, he would 
be as worldly minded, as ungrateful to God, as grasp- 
ing and selfish as some of the older citizens; who had 
been neither Protestants nor Papists, who had served 
the God of this world. 

The old phrases of the Huguenot faith, she con- 
stantly heard in the house of Eohan. And the clear 
sighted, kindly, motherly Duchess had uttered one 
word, which struck deeply into the heart of Constance. 

“ Why did you not marry that beautiful boy Charles 
de Menou, whom they now call Charnacd, the Man of 
Sin? If you had married him, he would have become 
a Protestant. Your mental and moral constitution is 
stronger than his. You have more body of character. 
And God would have used you, my dear, to win 
Charles to himself.” 

The accents were of the utmost tenderness, — such 
as her own mother had used, when she urged Con- 
stance to marry according to her heart, not according 
to her judgment and what was perhaps a mistaken 
view of religious duty, — and they seemed to Con- 
stance like a voice out of heaven. A voice 'was 
awakened within the chambers of her heart, — “Come 


LA. ROCHELLE, 239 

forth thou dead and buried love ; this is the morning 
of the resurrection.” 

These words were uttered at the breakfast table, of 
that gray November day, observed throughout France 
from time immemorial as the Day of the Dead; when 
the whole population goes forth to visit tombs, and 
strew the memorials of affection upon their mounds 
in the city of the dead. 

As she entered her sedan to go to the grave of her 
mother, Constance said so distinctly as to startle 
herself : — “It is my thought now, that the apostle 
would not advise young men and maidens to seek to 
be unequally yoked with unbelievers, or be careless 
in forming friendships with those who are deaf to the 
call of conscience and the Saviour of men ; yet on the 
other hand, if by long acquaintance their hearts are 
drawn toward marriage, they ought to marry, and 
trust that God will use the believing wife or husband 
to win over the unbeliever. Might it not have been 
wiser, if I had observed this rule, — wiser than my 
marrying " in the Lord * upon short acquaintance ? ^ 
And might not my life even in the wilderness have 
been happier, more complete, more useful, if I had 
clung solely to the company of my Guardian Angel 
after my brother’s death, and been content with the 
abiding presence of the Heavenly Bridegroom, than 
either to have married out of the Lord, or to have 
married in undue haste ? ” 

The sedan had to pass the house where Charles de 

1 1 Cor. 7-39 ; 2 Cor. 6-14. 


240 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Menou’s mother died, when Constance was ten years 
old. And the pale but glorified features of the dying 
returned to her mind as if in a vision. Constance 
remembered how in her childish love, she had tried 
to kiss away the fast falling tears from the cheeks of 
her playmate, who was then like one of her brothers. 
And she recalled the long evenings in which they had 
studied together, before her father’s great open fire ; 
until Charles was led by Palladio into other employ- 
ment for the most of his evenings. 

She recalled the dread day when the Baron Hercule 
Charnacd, who had been appointed the legal guardian 
of the orphaned Charles de Menou, came to La Eo- 
chelle bringing Palladio. How pale the Baron looked. 
She had since heard that he was at that time very 
ill, made so by the death of his young wife; that 
for three years his reason, if not life itself, had been 
endangered by his great sorrow. 

Eecalling all this, her early love returned again. 
She wished that she could see Charnac^ once more. 

In these thoughts she almost forgot the errand 
upon which she was going, until the sedan began to 
be jostled by the crowds of mourners entering the 
gates of the cemetery. It seemed as if the world 
itself had left its traffic for one day, and that upon 
this one day every citizen was bearing in his arms 
some token of grief. 

Constance could not stay. It was all too public, 
although every visitor appeared to be occupied by his 
own mound of sacred earth. 


LA ROCHELLE. 


241 


She had re-entered her chair, which had been 
brought to the graveside, when she saw a man kneel- 
ing upon the grave of Madame de Menou; kissing 
the sod, and forming upon the grave a cross of costly 
flowers out of season. It was not far away. She saw 
him rising from the grave : it was Charnac^. 

Hastily dropping her curtains, she asked her 
bearers to move down the path. 

“ Stop, stop,” cried the voice in her heart. 

“ I do not dare to stop,” answered Constance. “ I 
see a great gulf opening at my feet. I do not know 
how deep it is, or how wide it is.” 

“ Can you not trust yourself to wait, and watch for 
him, and see his face ? ” 

“ I do not dare to trust myself to-day. My heart 
has gone back ten years.” 

“Move quickly, and get away from the crowd,” 
spoke Constance in a tremulous tone, urging her 
bearers to hasten. 

A breath from the sea now veiled the streets. The 
bearers were directed this way and that through cross , 
streets. Within the hour Constance had bidden fare- 
well to the Eohans, hoisted sail, and stolen out into 
the Atlantic. The weather was thick, but she had 
accustomed herself to varying conditions upon the 
Acadian coast; so she hastened to take advantage 
of the wind, — which had veered to the right quarter 
just as her bearers were leaving the cemetery. 

It was all over now. The sea seemed to her 
domestic and homelike. And when she retired to 
16 


242 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


rest, rocked by the billows, she read, — “He shall 
give his angels charge concerning thee.” 

And when she kneeled to prq,y for her husband 
and her child, she said, — “There is no *What if.’ 
Conscious now of chagrins and disappointments in 
my married life, fixed in a yoke unequal, — it is only 
that I may bear up under it in a true womanly and 
wifely way. May God bless my home.” 

Then in a moment, she added, — “ May God bless 
my early friend, Charnac^; and lead him, even if 
by strange paths, to find spiritual rest. Is he not 
now. Infinite Father, like a storm-tossed bird upon 
the ocean ? Oh, Thou, without whom no sparrow 
falls, remember the prayers of his dying mother, and 
remember the cry of his own heart to be led in Thy 
ways.” 


THE ACADIAN WREATH. 


243 


XXVIIL 

THE ACADIAX WREATH. 

HARXACE, en route for La Rochelle, passed 



through Orleans, dawn the Loire to Tours, 
athwart the tributaries, the Cher, the Indre to the 
mouth of the Creuse, then up the right fork of the 
Vienne through Poitiers. The roads were very beau- 
tiful in the late autumn, which had not parted with 
all its leaves. The fine weather was inspiriting. 
Charnac^ recalled the memory of his varied jour- 
neyings in his native country, in former years. He 
had forgotten how wonderful it all was, when com- 
pared with monotonous and bleak Acadia. 

His letters opened the doors of hospitality ; and he 
made the journey last as many days as possible. All 
France seemed to him to rise in contrast with the 
New World. The rivers ; the cultivated grounds; the 
vinelands; the church spires of country towms; the 
monastery by the waterside ; a picturesque crag sur- 
mounted by some holy house, pointed by the cross, 
where the devout were chanting songs to God as if 
in a bell tower ; honored cloisters where venerated stu- 
dents, famed of the world, have scourged their backs and 
prayed in the hours of darkness ; small fortified cities. 


244 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


with buildings already old and quaint, and the hoar 
of centuries upon them ; orderly soldiers at city gates, 
or lined upon the defences; towers commanding a 
wide area of hill, dale, forest, and stream; ancient 
houses hung with weapons, and the relics of the wars 
of many generations; massive fortresses that have 
stood the shock of centuries ; the military homes of 
feudal lords upon some shelf among mountain crags 
and the wild eagles ; the ruins of Eoman greatness in 
the days of the conquest of Gaul, where one would 
pause and listen for the tramp of armies ; obelisks in 
the ornamented squares of the larger cities ; the me- 
mentos of the great men of the nation ; cathedrals, in 
which a city might meet upon the tesselated floor to 
worship before the great altar, — all this now seemed 
new to the hermit of Penobscot Bay, as if he had 
never before seen it. 

At Orleans he was attracted by Henry the Fourth’s 
new cathedral with its towers of two hundred and 
eighty feet ; by the house of Francis I. ; by that of 
Agnes of Sorel, and of Diana of Poitiers. Twelve 
centuries had passed since the venerable city had 
been besieged by Attila ; and it was now more than 
two hundred years since it was delivered from the 
English siege by Joan of Arc. How strongly did 
this countrywoman remind him of Constance, whose 
purposes were not less clearly deflned than if they 
had been forced upon her attention by St. Michael 
out of heaven; whose religious enthusiasm had so 
nearly swept him off his feet into the Calvinistic 


THE ACADIAN WREATH. 


245 


heresy in his youth ; whose power over him, even 
now, was like that exercised by the Holy Maid 
over the wild birds and the living creatures in the 
forest. 

The studies of Calvin and Beza at Orleans awak- 
ened in the mind of Charnace a train of reflections, 
which prepared him better to appreciate the Protes- 
tant population of Tours, then not far from forty 
thousand,^ who had grown up under the very shadow 
of the great abbey St. Martin, which had held the 
ground for more than a thousand years. Find- 
ing the Cathedral doors open for private worship, 
Charnac4 entered the richly carved portals, gazed a 
moment upon the fine windows, — then devoutly 
bowed at the great altar, praying to the Father 
who seeth in secret. 

At Poitiers, the Eoman Limoneum, on the Clain, 
he visited the ruins of the vast amphitheatre built by 
men who expected to hold their own for ages; he 
went to the battle grounds, where Clovis had defeated 
Alaric, then eleven centuries since, and where Charles 
Martel drove back the Saracens in A. D. 732. The 
steep, the crooked, the narrow streets of the city ; 
the deep ravines on every side save one ; the great 
chain of hills reaching soutJiwest, — all interested 
him, just as they did upon the day when he first 
saw it with the Bernons, in searching out the place 

1 The removal of this manufacturing population by the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, inflicted a blow upon the prosperity of the 
city from which it has not recovered to this day. 


246 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


of Calvin’s concealment from his enemies, where the 
seeds of the Keformation were first sown in the hearts 
of a few young men of promise, who bore the new life 
to La Eochelle. 

Still no siren song came to Charnac^ from out 
the centuries, bidding him distrust his Church, 
Grateful now to the ecclesiastical soldier of Acadia, 
was the thought of the motherhood of the Church of 
God ; age after age brooding over the civilized world, 
sheltering beneath her wings the poor and the rich, 
and proclaiming the reign of God as paramount to 
all earthly interests. 

The mass of mankind, he reasoned with himself 
are receptive not creative ; they need to lean hard 
upon some great and strong nature ordained of 
heaven to take the responsibility of the earth’s con- 
trol. To such, how great the boon of the Church, 
the authorized ruler of mankind. 

He could not but remember the motherly kindness 
of Palladio in his orphaned boyhood. His own father, 
like his uncle, was easy about his religion, not given 
to worrying about the morals of the world ; of fine 
executive qualities, and ability as a business man. 
His mother was of the noblest, — the most unselfish 
in nature, delicate, refined, devout, — but never an in- 
dependent thinker; they were, as he reasoned, both by 
nature Catholics, who should have taken the dictum 
of the Mother Church, — although his mother by early 
influence had happened to take the Bernon doctrine 
instead of the pope’s. How nearly he came to doing 


THE ACADIAN WREATH. 247 

that, himself. The Bernons were by nature kings 
and queens of the world. 

"It is all in the blood,” he said, thinking out loud; 
" in the training. It is not in me to do as Constance 
does. But I thank God for the faith I have in the 
Infinite Love, whether administered through priests, 
prophets, apostles, or the saints living or dead, — al- 
ways the same love manifesting itself to those whose 
hearts are sore, and who long after some supreme 
affection.” 

His wandering, wondering heart, — in these de- 
lightful days of journeying, when a thousand mem- 
ories came back awakened by the changing scenery 
of every hour, — could not fail to people the country, 
through which he passed, with his own loved ones. 

“ Of course,” he said, talking to himself, " the an- 
cestors of Constance in the far off generations were 
all Catholics ; and why might not she have been one, 
also ? A woman so capable as she, — in some other 
sphere than La Eochelle rocked by the war tempest, 
or Acadia in the wilderness, — would have left grate- 
ful memories of herself upon the soil of France, in 
some uplifting and abiding work for the spiritual 
gain of her nation.” 

Nobody rising up to deny this proposition,, he 
made another. " How foolish I was to give up Con- 
stance as my religious teacher, when I was privileged 
to call her my friend. With her expanding woman- 
hood, she might, under changed circumstances, have 
become eminent in the Church, with her great heart. 


248 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


ready to mother the whole needy world. If she were 
here now, I almost believe that I could persuade her 
to take charge of one of these houses of holy women 
or of orphaned children.” 

He even went so far as to select a site for the 
erection of religious houses with the fortune he 
would bring from Acadia. It was a harmless mode 
of amusing his journey. 

He wondered how Constance would greet him, if 
he could see her. 

It never seemed to occur to Cbarnacd, that Con- 
stance had married. He considered La Tour a 
nobody. 

When he came so near to his native city as to 
recognize familiar objects, his heart began to break 
down. Charnacd was, like his uncle, of a singularly 
sensitive spirit. He saw now, that, in all the city, 
not one heart would turn to him with affection. He 
alone of all the old Protestant families had left the 
faith ; he must go in and go out, like a stranger. 
With a wail, like a man in the lowest depths of 
despair, with a heart hungering for human love 
and sympathy, he cried, in low piercing tones, — 
“Constance ! Constance ! ” 

But the Acadian wilds were far off ; and there was 
no answer. 

He entered the city upon the morning of the Day 
of the Dead. He had almost forgotten that there 
was such a day. Hastening to purchase the most 
costly of flowers, so late in the season, an early day 


TEE ACADIAN WREATH. 


249 


in November, he joined the throngs entering the 
burial place, — a place made memorable by the 
dust of heroes for many generations. He easily 
found his mother’s grave. 

Charnacd had taken no time to compose his mind 
for visiting such a spot. He had come in with the 
great throng. Holding his flowers, at the headstone, 
he thought how he would divide them. He would 
carry a part to adorn the grave of Constance’s mother. 
Eaising his eyes to look for the spot, he saw a figure 
clad in deep mourning, kneeling at the door of the 
well known ancient tomb of the Bernons. 

Charnacd became pale as the marble upon which 
his hand rested, and still as the marble. It might be 
some domestic friend ; possibly Elizabeth de Eohan. 
If it were Constance ! He had in his pocket the 
order for her arrest. In it she was named as a 
traitor. He had procured it by a thousand lies. 
He had in his heart a thousand ignominies to be 
poured out upon her Acadian home. He could not 
cross this gulf, and speak to her, — even if she were 
Constance. 

The figure moved. It was Constance. He flung 
himself upon his knees upon his mother’s grave, and 
tried with palsied fingers to arrange the flowers. 

When he ventured to look again, she had gone. 
He would follow ; but his feet were like lead. He 
had committed treason against her in his heart, and 
he had no right to follow. This saint of the living 
God stood upon the one side, and he, — a lying, per- 


250 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


jured ecclesiastic, and no friend to her, — stood upon 
the other ; and there was a measureless abyss between 
them. 

Then and there, he took his parchment order of 
arrest, and cut out the name of Constance. But 
what should he do with it? The name was too 
sacred to be mutilated. What a madman was he 
to have it inserted. He took from next his heart the 
Thomas k Kempis, and placed the name of Constance 
in it. Now, what ? 

He threw himself in bitter agony upon his mother’s 
grave, and poured out his blinding tears. Have I 
come to this, 0 my God, that there is an unsounded 
depth morally between me and my dead mother, and 
between me and the living Constance ? ” 

He thought of the infamies of his life, which sep- 
arated him from the upright in heart. 

Feeling a chill from the sea change, which had 
come into the November day, he arose and went to 
the Bernon tomb. He found a wreath of Acadian 
feather flowers ; made from the brilliant tints of 
humming birds and variegated plumage of songsters 
and waterfowl. Attached to it he saw a card, in 
the handwriting of Constance : — “ Many children of 
the Souriquois, who owe their spiritual life to my 
mother’s teaching, send this gift with their gratitude, 
by Constance.” 

Should he cut off the card, and rob the dead ? He 
could not do that. 

Pressing the card to his lips, he kneeled, and 


THE ACADIAN WREATH, 


251 


prayed, — “ God forgive me for being untrue to Con- 
stance even in my thought ; and make me such, that 
I may be willing to meet her.” 

He timidly found his way that night to the house 
of Eohan, wondering whether the Guardian Angel of 
Constance would stand at the door with a drawn 
sword. He was met by Elizabeth, the comely 
daughter of the house. A cordial welcome was ex- 
tended to him by the Duchess. Constance had 
never breathed a word in the house, of the course 
taken by Charnace in Acadia against the peace of 
her home ; so that the Duchess and her daughter 
talked with him, as if he and Constance were on the 
same plane as years ago, save that Constance had 
married. Charnacd had no heart to stay; every 
word they spoke cut him to the quick. He made 
no inquiry for Constance; but they spoke of her 
sudden departure, — she had been waiting only for 
the wind to change. 

He returned to the Bernon tomb next morning, 
and cut off the card ; and put it into his Thomas ^ 
Kempis, where it was found after his death, by Joe 
Takouchin, — and it was buried with him. 


252 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. ' 


XXTX. 


BARON CHARNACE. 



‘HERE are few stories of domestic life in France 


so pathetic as that of the brief married life, fol- 
lowed by overwhelming grief, of the Baron Hercule 
Charnac4. His only consolation in a world emptied 
by the hand of death was to fill the world with the 
fame of his country. Pre-eminent for purity of life, 
and his knowledge of the affairs of nations and those 
principles which underlie statecraft, he was little dis- 
turbed by the contending religious factions of his age, 
preferring to satisfy his own conscience and make his 
peace with God in his own way. As very rarely 
a communicant, upon such occasions as were made 
sacred to him by the memory of his sainted dead, 
he won the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities, 
and silently pursued his private studies when not 
engaged in his diplomatic calling. 

Taking great pleasure in the company of his 
nephew, his ward, whom he had made his heir, 
and who promised so well to honor their ancient 
house, he urged the younger Charnace to winter in 
Paris; the business in hand requiring time, and an 


BARON CHARNACE. 


253 

acquaintance with leading men being of prospective 
advantage. 

To the younger Charnacd his spirited Comedy gave 
the recognition of those lettered men, who had been 
formed into The Academy by scholarly Eichelieu. 
And he pursued special studies under the direction 
of the learned men of the Benedictine community ; 
and gave much time to history and politics, under 
the guidance of his uncle. 

Fascinated by the genius of Eichelieu, he sought to 
forward the views of this master by securing the as- 
sent of the papal authorities to settle the Huguenot 
question by a fair discussion, so hoping at least to 
win some by reason. In advancing this end he was 
commissioned to negotiate with Urban VIII., unhap- 
pily without effect ; the leading ecclesiastics of France 
being opposed to it. . 

In another way, however, the Acadian Governor 
was of service, — that of securing for the army men 
eminent among the Protestants. By this means the 
chagrins of La Eochelle were diminished; and France 
as a nation had the ability of her noblest sons, native 
and adopted. This could not but have had, although 
unknown to himself at the time, the happiest influ- 
ence upon the character of Charnac^. 

Who could even for a moment be brought into 
contact with Marshal Gession without being made 
the better for it ? Said the fierce fighter to an offi- 
cer, who thought an enterprise impracticable, — “I 
have that in my head, and at my side, all that is 


254 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


requisite for victory.” His sword being able to do 
all that his brain prompted. To Eichelieu he said, — 
“ I will serve you in everything, except in that which 
is underhanded ” “ This may hinder your promotion 

but it will not hinder my esteem,” was the regal reply. 

Greater still was his good fortune in securing, 
through letters from his uncle, the service to Trance 
of Marshal Eantzau ; who, by the proverb, was shot 
everywhere except in his heart, — who carried to a 
peaceful grave one eye, one arm, one leg, and sixty 
honorable wounds. 

The liberal views entertained by the Baron, of the 
practical working of Protestantism in affecting favor- 
ably the public morals, as seen by him at Geneva and 
in Sweden, were not without weight with the younger 
Charnac^ ; who was as hospitable as his uncle to new 
views, and, like him, easily took on the color of his 
immediate surroundings. The character of Gustavus 
Adolphus, as delineated by the ambassador, bore fruit 
in Acadia. The greatness of his military genius ; his 
personal bravery, without passion, without cruelty, 
never ungenerous to a foe; his even balance; his 
practical wisdom; his simple and almost faultless 
character, — made him a peer in the house of that 
divine order of nobility which numbers so few in all 
countries and all ages. That he, being such a man, 
planted himself so squarely upon his clear under- 
standing of the Word of God, commended to Baron 
Charnace the Protestant faith, more than could have 
been done by cartloads of Calvinistic Institutes. 


BABON CH ABN ACE. 


255 


It was when the Baron one morning gave to his 
nephew a copy of the Scriptures, which he had re- 
ceived from the Swedish King, that a conversation 
ensued touching young Charnacd’s early life. Charles 
of La Eochelle has spoken of the motto still lettered 
upon the door casements of his mother’s house 
“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye 
have eternal life.” 

“ You rejected the crudities of Calvinism, only to 
accept the crudities of a Spanish soldier,” — said 
Charnacd the elder. 

“I did it, sir,” replied the nephew, “under the 
instruction of the teacher provided by my guardian 
in my tender years.” 

“I made a great mistake,” was the answer, “for 
which I offer to you as a man, the apology due for 
the practical misdirection which I gave you as a boy. 
The Jesuits then most easily furnished private 
teachers of great ability as well as fine scholarship. 
And with the Jesuits was hidden the key of political 
promotion. I thought to serve you, not to hamper 
you. Would you not do wisely to cut clear of your 
Superior forever, in respect to what you call your 
voluntary obedience ? ” 

“What then would become of my promotion, as 
you are pleased to call it? Only yesterday the 
General of the Society was pleased to urge upon 
me priestly vows, in order that I might be placed 
in charge of the Order in America ; it being proposed 
now to enlarge the work.” 


256 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


“You will I trust give him an evasive answer. 
Defer your decision until your Acadian business 
turns to your mind. It will not then be too late, if 
civil position does not offer.” 

“There is little safety in delaying obedience to 
one’s Superior, unless one throws up the system 
altogether,” returned the Acadian. 

“You can suitably deceive him in your own in- 
terest,” answered the diplomatist. “You are not 
bound to speak the truth to him, except in matters 
of common interest. He does not expect you to do 
it. Your own interest is personal, yours ; the Order 
has not just claim upon it. You will never reach the 
highest 'position in the State, unless you use the Or- 
der; do not allow it to use you, except at your 
convenience.” 

“ I have noticed,” said the nephew, “ that the Car- 
dinal protects the Jesuits rather than seeks their 
protection; puts forward the Franciscans; leagues 
with Lutherans; takes nations out of the Catholic 
League which the Pope is trying to tie together, — 
in short he acts like a man not a tool.” 

“Yes,” was the answer, “he uses, in fact, his re- 
ligious position to aid his political movements ; and 
makes all Europe tributary to the upbuilding of his 
own individual thought and plan. He has boldly 
said to the Pope, that France can never be the el- 
dest son of the Church, unless first of all there is a 
France, respected by Europe ; and how to make 
France respected, he must be the judge, not the 


BARON CHARNACE, 


257 


Pope. But he could never compass his end, if he 
had not the qualities of a diplomatist of the highest 
rank, — as well as the position of prime minister, and 
paramount influence in the Church. He works be- 
low the surface, concealing his methods, moving as 
secretly as the hidden cause of the lightning, or the 
earthquake, or the principle of life in all growing 
things.” 

To his uncle, Charnac^ unbosomed all his secret 
life, — his love for Constance. There could be no 
more profound and tender sympathy than that of 
him, whose home had been so much to him that his 
life was blighted all his years, when it was destroyed 
by death. The nephew was urged to establish his 
worldly ambitious upon the basis of a home, to aban- 
don all possible dreams of priestly solitude. 

“Our family stock,” said the Baron, “is so con- 
stituted that we all yearn with an unspeakable long- 
ing for the felicities of domestic life. We are not 
made for priests, to wed the Church. The holy 
evangel can never train men, unless there are men 
to train. We must have full and finely developed 
manhood; and there is no fair proportion to life 
without the inspiration of noble women. Mere me- 
chanical obedience to an ecclesiastical power, which 
is to do all the thinking and all the acting for all the 
world, without one iota of personal responsibility on 
the part of any man save to obey a Superior, — would 
ruin the world, and make manliness impossible. I 
hope, my dear sir, that you will get out of the ma- 
17 


258 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


chine, within whose grasp I was so thoughtless as 
to place you. Then marry. The motherhood of 
the Church is good; but you want a wife. You 
are incomplete without a home.” 

All this was said in a tender, subdued tone, as of 
one voicing a great sorrow ; and the Baron arose from 
the table, and sought seclusion for the remainder of 
the day. 

The Acadian loan was, after many delays, effected 
with Emmanuel Le Borgue of La Eochelle ; to whom 
was given as security an area half as large as France, 
— no small part of which was owned by La Tour 
and the Scotch, and nobody knew who would claim 
it before Le Borgue’s money might be due. He 
advanced, first and last an enormous amount for such 
security. The transactions were completed at the 
Baron’s house, 16 Eue de Grenelle, which is described 
in the papers as the house which has for a sign the 
flcur de lys, near the olive tree.^ 

The legal transfer of the M. Eazilly property to 
Charnac4 appears to have been made at the same 
time ; the acknowledgment being before Messieurs 
Platrier and Chappelin, Notaries. 

It was one of the felicities enjoyed by Charnacd 
that he belonged to a spy system which wired the 
world before telegraphs, reaching every part of the 
civilized and no small part of the barbaric world, — 
the system of Loyola. By this he kept himself 
informed of the doings of Constance, as she was 
1 Murdoch’s Nova Scotia, I. 96, 97. 


BARON CHARNACE. 


259 


completing her purchases in London ; and he learned, 
when too late to intercept her, of her contract with 
Captain Bayley master of the Dolphin, one of Aider- 
man Berkly’s ships, to transport her and her freight 
to St. John. 

Charnac^’s return voyage to Acadia was to be in a 
government ship, the St. Francis ; whose commander 
would bear La Tour as prisoner of State to France. 
After long delays he made ready ; and embarked 
from the port of the Associates in Morbihan, some 
four months later than the sailing of Constance. 


260 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXX. 


THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA. 


SEA voyage suited the mood of Charnacd, 



after his life in Paris. He had become almost 
as eager to return to Acadia as he had been to leave 
it. The great city seemed far off, and its citizens 
lonely, upon the first morning after the shores of 
France had gone down behind the horizon. He found 
that his individuality had been favored by America. 
When alone he sought to imitate his ideal, not pat- 
tern after a neighbor who might be small or great. 

He easily adjusted himself to sea-going ways, and 
kept watch with the officers ; not for serving the ship 
but for serving himself. With the close habits of a 
student, he observed regular seasons for thinking over 
his reading, and for self communion ; the dog watch 
of sunrise or sunset, the long hours before midnight, 
and sometimes four small hours of the morning. 
His deck-walking in all weathers was often like 
being alone in Acadia. 

Perhaps he missed his calling, and should have 
been a poet. He had that sympathetic power by 
which he could throw himself into the situation of 


THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA, 


261 


another; and rhetorical equipment by which to ex- 
press another’s life. Often he had amused himself 
? in this way. In Acadia, Charnac^ had learned, at 
times, to feel as the savages did, to think as they 
thought ; in Paris, he occasionally imagined himself, 
for the hour, in place of Kichelieu, or the General of 
his Order ; in Eome he fancied what might be the 
interior life of Urban. 

It came to him when floating upon the St. Francis, 
a mere chip upon the ocean, — why not for some 
days and nights imagine myself to be Constance ? 
It would be next to having her companionship ; 
and at least he would understand her better. Per- 
haps it was a strange and unwarrantable notion. 
And what he might think would be doubtless as 
little like her, as if he were to fancy himself stand- 
ing in the place of Ariel in the sun. Still, the 
thought pleased him. It would be not unlike in- 
venting, for his own private sight, a play of Con- 
stance, in which she would figure as the principal 
character. 

Night was spreading over the face of the deep, and 
the stars were coming out, and the surface of the 
waters was becoming dark, — when this idea of per- 
sonating Constance first occurred to him, after he had j 
been some weeks at sea. J 

He had at once a strong feeling of isolation. ’ 
Surely there was but one Constance ; and she must 
have an abiding sense of being alone, as if upon a 
small craft in a great ocean, or in a slight shelter 


262 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


embosomed in a forest covering a hemisphere, or a 
snow hut in the frozen north, — living alone with her 
Guardian Angel. 

This would never do ; he could not easily imagine 
himself — with all his longing for a home — as so 
situated. He gazed long and dreamily upon the 
phosphorescent light in the wake of the ship, or 
went to the prow to see the lights dash up out of 
the sea in the little waves tossed from the bows. 
He even thought to take the place of the figure- 
head, St. Francis, and stand in his place, — as Con- 
stance in lonely watch over the paths of ocean. 

When his watch was over, he saw before retiring 
the Bible, which his uncle had given to him as a 
memento of Gustavus Adolphus, having in it the 
King’s autograph. Did Constance ever close the day 
without her Bible ? With sleepy eyes he opened the 
lid. He saw the phrase, in his uncle’s handwriting, 
Look to this as your Superior.” 

He had read the Bible to controvert, read it as a 
theologian, read it for the literature; but the next 
morning he read, as Constance would do, — for spirit- 
ual direction. It could not, he reasoned, be trifling 
with sacred things, if in his imaginative humor he 
should hold his mind open to receive the Word as a 
conclusive moral authority, as Constance would do. 

Taking a turn upon deck at noon he saw a solitary 
sail upon the horizon, the only one sighted in the 
whole voyage except on either coast. Turning his 
eyes away for a moment, the ship disappeared as 


THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA, 


263 


completely as if she had gone down. A slight mist, 
so far away as not to be noticed, had intervened. 
To Charnac^ it brought to mind the suddenness 
with which he had lost sight of Constance at La 
Eochelle. It was perhaps her fate, perhaps his, to 
he alone; and how soon might they both be veiled 
from all earthly sight, and sleep in graves which were 
already waiting. 

When he began his deck watch from eight to 
twelve, the wind was dropping. The St. Francis very 
sluggishly responded to what little air there was ; so 
that Charnac^, — who imagined himself to be a little 
sensitive to the heat of the day which continued 
after sundown, — was glad like a woman to stand in 
draughts made by the canvas. It may have been in 
the spirit of Constance that he felt that night, as 
never before, the mysterious silence of the sea. The 
air was too still to bring a sound from the rigging, 
and the sea too still to awaken creaking and moan- 
ing among the timbers. The waves were asleep, and 
the sails idle. Forward, the low voices of the sea- 
men were soon hushed. It may be that the rough 
forecastle hands were awed by an unusual presence, 
as if Constance were upon the man-of-war. There 
w^as no need of an officer’s footfall, so that Char- 
nac^ or Constance heard no sound save the ship’s 
bell. 

He kept a double watch; and gave the entire 
night to reflection upon his studies of the day. It 
was apparent that the Bible was addressed to every 


264 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


man alone ; God revealing himself to the individual, 
and holding each man to an account for himself. 

He thought over the points in his own career, and 
his plans for the future. His own isolation bore wit- 
ness with the Scriptures, that he must make his own 
destiny. The individuality of the Bible phrases 
made a great impression upon his mind. “The 
God with whom we have to do,” he said to himself, 
“must be the God of Constance. Her Superior is 
the Supreme. With Him, she is ready to die alone, 
and to go forward to the Judgment alone. She needs 
no priest, save the Son of Man.” 

“How delightful it is,” he added, as if he were 
Constance, “ that He is called the Son of Man, at 
no great remove from the sinning and sorrowing; 
and that we can go straight to him, — without Mary, 
or a Saint, or a Vicar.” 

“ This never will do,” said the solitary watchman, 
as he heard the step of the second officer, and saw 
him look aloft. The wind was beginning to draw a 
little abaft the port beam. “But why will it not 
do ? Have I no right to think for myself ? Is not 
my will free ? Is not my conscience individual ? In 
all earthly business I decide for myself, why not in 
the affairs of my soul ? Why may I not receive here 
in the good ship St. Francis a new revelation, as prop- 
erly as Loyola in the cave of Manresa ? Henceforth, 
I will call no man master. One is my Master, even 
Christ.” 

The next afternoon, however, after his long sleep, 


THE MIDDLE OF TEE SEA. 


265 


he was timid. “ I am going,” he said, too far. I 
will no longer play the part of Constance. But her 
life is world wide from mine, if she accepts this Book 
as it is, without priestly comment.” 

It was one of those days which make a sailor’s 
heart glad ; and he imagined himself for the two 
hours, in which he strode the deck, to be none other 
than Gilberto the boatswain, of simple faith, and of 
dutiful love for his toil upon the high seas. It was 
blowing very fresh, the canvas was stretching to the 
breeze, St. Francis was rushing through the water, as 
eagerly as the original saint hastened to seek martyr- 
dom among the Turks. The sun had begun to weaken 
early in the afternoon, peering out dimly upon the 
gathering storm. The surface of the sea was rugged. 
After nightfall, it was of inky blackness. The shij) 
was moving at a great pace. Charnac4 turned in, to 
the music of water bubbling through the starboard 
scuppers. 

True to Gilberto’s character, Charnacd prayed to 
various respectable Italian Saints; and, in his dreams, 
he again walked the streets of Eome, and he attended 
service at St. Peter’s. 

For his next morning studies, he turned, alter- 
nately, to Loyola’s Letter on Obedience, and to the 
Swedish King’s Bible ; having returned to his fancy, 
that Constance was there studying in his place. 
''Obedience to whom?” he asked, just as he was 
called to his mess table. " To God. I find no Bible 
rule by which all interpretation is to be shifted off 


266 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


upon another. If I do not obliterate the Word of 
God and get on without it, — I must decide for my- 
self what it means, as I make my decisions indepen- 
dently in secular affairs.” 

The evening watch in the long late hours, found 
the ship pitching a good deal, as Charnac^ walked 
the deck. The waves were heavier, the sky was 
thick, the wind half a gale. “ There can be no 
middle ground,” he said, having by some effort 
imagined Constance exercising in the wind on 
deck, — as indeed she might be, for aught he knew, 
in some other part of the wide ocean. “ Either God 
is manifest now to every disciple, as to those in the 
Gospel story, or He is not. If He is not, then we 
need a Vicar; if He is, then we do not need a 
Vicar.” 

He listened to the creaking of the spars, and the 
roaring of the wind on high; and heard the men 
stumbling along the deck, in obeying the orders of 
the first officer. He looked astern at the seething 
foam, the only light in the great darkness, — and 
said, “ Good night, Constance.” 

“ In any event,” he thought to himself, going down 
the companion way, 'Hhe course pursued by Con- 
stance seems more reasonable, when I imagine my- 
self in her place. I do not see how she can do 
otherwise and be loyal to her God. And if she 
really seeks the guidance of the Divine Spirit to 
interpret to her the Word, as she used to say, and 
as I find her directed to do in the Word itself, she 


THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA. 267 

is probably as near right as she can be outside the 
pale of the true Church.” 

The next walk, by day, Charnac^ tried to place 
himself in imaginative sympathy with Francisco 
Brogi, whom he had detested at sight, who was 
nevertheless — as a special favor to his old con- 
fessor Arrighi — to be one of his own military 
household. He was an Italian officer ; who had 
won a great reputation in Portugal, in aiding John, 
duke of Braganza to recover his kingdom. Having 
never been upon a long voyage before, he was now 
thoroughly sea-sick, and nearly dead, as he expressed 
it. This tickled the risibles of Charnacd, who con- 
jured up all sorts of odd contrasts, between the 
famous fights General Brogi had been in, and his 
present condition. He fancied the terror produced 
in Brogi’s mind by the sight of the hilly horizon, 
and the foaming succession of waves ; by the boom- 
ing of the seas against the bows of the ship ; by the 
howling of the wind; by the shaking of the sails j 
by the clanking of the chain sheets ; by the plung- 
ing of the vessel; by the seas shipped over the 
bulwarks. 

Suddenly he lost his cue, and said — to the face of 
the wind — “ Even Constance would beat him for a 
sailor, — perhaps as a soldier.” 

The occupation of Charnac^ had been serious as 
well as amusing. He had desired to see things from 
the stand point occupied by Constance. And now 
he was more than ever persuaded, that the universal 


268 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


harmonies demanded their union even in this life. 
He must have a home. He was done with the 
Church, as a profession. 

Now in these wild hours of storm he was exhila- 
rated, and lifted above himself ; and as he had often 
walked with Constance upon the fortifications of La 
Bochelle when they were children together, to watch 
the violence of the sea and the curling crests, when 
the Atlantic broke, shock on shock, against the im- 
movable battlements, so now he imagined that she 
was with him, hand in hand, outlooking upon the 
illimitable drifts of foam white as the snows of 
Acadia, or listening in strange glee to the heavy 
flapping of the canvas and the rigging screeching 
in the gale. 

“ Perhaps Constance is praying for me at this 
moment,” said Charnacd, as a heavy thud — like an 
iron billow — struck the bows of the ship. 

When he still keeping to his usual thoughts 
opened his Bible, later in the day, he stumbled 
upon a passage that threw light upon the duty of 
a married woman, as Constance must understand it. 
He searched, and satisfied himself of how she must feel, 
or was bound by her Book to feel toward him. He 
carried the Book on deck, and flung it into the boil- 
ing sea. “With her fanaticism,” he said, “she may 
think it her religious duty never even to see me. 
Shall I be separated from her forever, without one 
word ? ” 

And he listened gladly to the sullen thunder of 


THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA, 


269 


the sea striking the St. Francis. He gazed upon 
the desolate gloom of the ocean around him. The 
straining timber of the ship was music to his ears. 
Charnacd had felt annoyed with himself, that he had 
been so near Constance, and yet so far from her, at 
his mother’s grave. He ought to have spoken to her ; 
even if his own wickedness had startled the dead. 

Perhaps,” he thought, ‘‘she saw me; and would 
not speak to me. She may have distrusted me. 
My love could not have been known to her. I 
will see her ; and show her my heart, my repentance 
toward her and my God.” 

He could not sleep, he would not sleep. His heart 
complained louder than the groaning ship. Would 
it not have been better if he had chosen his portion 
with the fat and oiled priests he saw in Paris, who 
had been his schoolmates ? Alas for him, he said, 
that he had a conscience, — that he could not do as 
they did. 

Past midnight the clouds were torn by the chang- 
ing wind, as it cross-plowed the skies. The rising 
and falling of the ship amid the thumping seas ; the 
appearance of the planets ; the paling of the stars be- 
fore the moon slowly rising from the deep ; the sheen 
of the low satellite upon the troubled waters; the 
skurrying clouds; the struggling light of the dawn 
faintly appearing, — all awakened in the heart of the 
lonely watcher echoes as tempestuous as the sea. 

He briefly rehearsed his religious experience ; but 
he could awaken no interest in his heart for the sal- 


270 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


vation of men. He was conscious of one absorbing 
passion, — to gain his point against La Tour, to see 
Constance, to establish his home. 

But when the moon was high, illuminating distant 
spaces of the sea, his illuminating conscience also 
arose, and he determined to quit Constance forever. 
How could he appear as her lover ? The great gulf 
yawning before him at La Eochelle, was now deeper 
and wider. Would he not at this season come upon 
some body of floating ice from the north ? Could he 
not make some excuse to ride the seas upon an ice 
floe ? Could he not find some way of escape, before 
the St. Francis should enter the Bay of Fundy ? 

At day dawn, however, it was clear enough that 
he was still Governor of Acadia ; upon a government 
ship, — in pursuit of a deadly enemy. His passions 
had been awakened by the war ; and they could 
not be stilled. He would fight for a home ; make a 
home for himself at the cannon’s mouth. 

Within the hour, Constance was under the guns 
of the St. Francis. 


TEE SUIT OF THE DOLPHIN. 


271 


XXXI. 

THE SUIT OF THE DOLPHIN. 

TF Constance had set up for a saint, the devil’s 
advocate — commissioned by the usages of the 
Church to oppose her canonization by cataloguing 
her sins — would have made much of her exasperated 
state of mind in regard to Captain John Bay ley, who 
had been six months in a voyage requiring two, — 
having spent his time in trading with the Indians in 
the Bay of Chaleurs, and at Cape Breton. If Con- 
stance had known in early May what she knew late 
in August about Captain Bayley, she would have had 
her light stuff set ashore, and packed across the 
country from Point Du Ch^ne or either of several 
trading stations made by the Dolphin, — then she 
could have summered at home, and her goods could 
have been handled ; as it was, the La Tour trade for 
the season was nearly ruined by the Captain’s delay. 
But Bayley was not in the slightest degree savage 
or ugly about it; upon the other hand he was the 
most accommodating creature in the world. He was 
always about to move on. 

Constance talked to Eoger Williams — who was on 
board with his Khode Island Charter — and Koger 


272 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Williams talked to Constance ; until they were both 
as dry as the Breton herring. They read the Are- 
opagitica together, — then new to the reading world ; 
and discussed English politics. And Williams vol- 
unteered his views in regard to the peculiar govern- 
ment of Massachusetts Bay. Constance and Williams 
both improved in piety, and in their notions of civil 
freedom; and they grew old together. But Captain 
Bayley kept on trading with the Indians. 

When he was satisfied that he could not make 
anything more out of his peltry — for that season, 
he began to think about Williams, who had remarked 
that the nations were waiting to see his Charter un- 
rolled upon Narragansett Bay ; and to think about 
the French woman, who insisted that her husband’s 
fort might be lost altogether before the arrival of her 
London guns and powder, and that in such event the 
Captain would lose his freight and passage money. 

Captain Bayley finally drew his lumbering old 
brig out upon the road he ought to have travelled 
over early in the season, — just in time to be caught 
in the late August storm. Aside from what gave way 
by decay, through lapse of time, the Dolphin suffered 
little damage, and was proceeding as leisurely as she 
could toward Cape Sable, when she was overhauled 
by the St. Francis. 

The night visions of Constance had been upon the 
high hills and bold cliffs of Acadia, and the rushing 
seas of Fundy ; where the flashing brine was sal ter, 
and the sparkling waters brighter, than any other in 


THE SUIT OF TEE DOLPHIN. 273 

the world to her. Awakened early by her mother 
heart upon the day when she hoped to reach home, 
she thought to look out, and see the swell break over 
ledges far from shore ; possibly she might see the 
white line upon the coast. It was so near the day- 
dawn, that she had little expectation of discerning 
anything, save the tumult of the waves after the 
storm. 

She saw the St. Francis, — looming up largely in 
the imperfect light, — and bearing down upon the 
Dolphin. Constance could only make out that it 
was a French man-of-war, — lying over to the star- 
hoard ; and stealthily advancing through the heavy 
water. Charnac^, at the same moment, heard, against 
the wind, the faint songs of the seamen and the rum- 
bling of the yards, as the Dolphin was making more 
sail. The wind was dying out, and likely to fall 
calm ; but the St. Francis was a good seagoing craft, 
and was soon sliding past the brig within hail. 

It had now become light enough for Charnac^ to 
read the name of the Englishman, The Dolphin. It 
was the ship Constance had sailed in from London. 
He saw a woman near the wheel. Could it be Con- 
stance ? Constance saw a form at the prow of the 
stranger ; and the light so shone upon his features as 
to suggest to her the thought of Charnac^. She went 
below quickly. Meeting Captain Bayley at the com- 
panion way, she communicated her belief that the 
Frenchman was bound for Castle La Tour, and that 
the Dolphin might be wanted. 

18 


274 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


The hail of IsTovelais, the St. Francis commander, 
brought out the information that Captain John Syn- 
derland of the Dolphin, straight from the Thames 
and bound for Massachusetts Bay,^ would like to get 
his bearings, if the St. Francis had any idea what 
part of the sea they were in, after the blow. 

“We want to talk with Captain Bayley.” 

“ Captain Bayley is in London. He came out in 
the Dolphin last spring, and returned to England in 
June.” 

This tallied with what Charnace knew of the sail- 
ing of the Dolphin under Bayley in February or 
March, and was not unlikely true. Incredible as it 
might be to the religious mind of Novelais, that he 
was liable to pick up a Protestant in the ocean who 
would tell him the truth, it was more incredible to 
Charnac4, that Bayley had been six months cruising 
the Atlantic with Constance in search of St. John. 
So Charnac^ and Constance sailed away from each 
other as fast as they could. 

Captain Synderland proved to be of much more 
lively temperament than Bayley had been for the 
past six months ; and he shook out his reefs, crowded 
on what sail he could, and headed for Boston. He 
had a voice like a ship’s gun ; and was better armed 
than most merchantmen. This probably saved him 
some impertinence from the Saint with his black 
tiers of guns. 

Captain John Bayley had better success with the 
1 Compare with Winthrop’s account, II. 192. 


THE SUIT OF THE DOLPHIN. 


275 


French man-of-war Francis, than with the French 
woman-of-war Constance. She sued him for dam- 
ages. Without cash in hand, she could do nothing 
in Boston. Fra Marie was reported, as still cruising 
for the Dolphin, as he had been all summer. Bay- 
ley’s failure to land her, according to contract, made 
it needful for Constance to hire an armed escort to 
take her and her freight to St. John. Bayley, and 
his owner, Alderman Berkly of London, must pay 
the cost of carrying her to Acadia ; and make good 
to General La Tour the losses occasioned by delay. 

Light hearted La Tour had been made heavy 
hearted, thinking that Constance and the Ehode 
Island Charter had foundered at sea. Perhaps the 
Bay people took the more kindly to Constance and 
her suit, since her genial husband had left Boston 
only eight days before her arrival. He had been 
treated with the utmost honor and respect. Unlim- 
ited hospitality had been proffered ; and much pow- 
der was burned upon the occasion of his sailing down 
the harbor, — this time a salute from the Castle, the 
solitary occupant of former months having been re- 
inforced. General La Tour’s vast energy, his power 
to combine men, his ability to command confidence, 
and his apparently inexhaustible resources, made him 
a host of friends. Madame La Tour met, therefore, 
with a cordial reception, — as well on his account as 
upon her own. 

To the credit of the Endicott government be it 
spoken, — Captain Bayley was not hung at sight; 


276 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


public indignation was great, — but the forms of law 
were observed. Eoger Williams had prepared the 
mind of Constance for that. He had told her, that 
the Bay people would do just what they had a mind 
to ; but they would legalize it. 

That freedom from English law and precedent, 
which led in the end to the largest liberty, was al- 
ready manifest in the spirit of the colonial leaders. 
They had centuries of the elements of English liberty 
behind them, and the civil wars at home made it im- 
possible for the government to take effective notice 
of any irregularities alleged concerning colonists over 
the sea.^ 

1 Lechford’s Plaine Dealing shows that he labored with the 
“ lords- brethren ” to do things regularly, as to legal proceedings, 
and at least to keep records. He thought they exercised powers 
beyond the intent of the home government, and made pretensions 
of being wiser than the English law (pp. 83-86). The not record- 
ing appears to have been of set purpose ; they intended to create an 
American law and liberty, and did not want their work overhauled 
by the crown. The French Refugee of 1687 could not persuade the 
wily authorities to tell him about their courts ; they pi-ofessed to 
know nothing about them. The bright Frenchman’s report, how- 
ever, gives us the most that we know about the early legal proceed- 
ings of the Bay, — save the important information in Lechford. It 
appears that the magistrates advised the parties to a quarrel ; ^ then 
acted the part of advocates ; ^ then adjudicated upon them ! They 
considered this fairer than the employment of lawyers ; and allowed 
Lechford to try only one case. In that one, he lobbied with the 
jury privately ; it was probably a habit he brought from England. 
After two years, he tried his hand at hoeing corn, and at advising 
the colony for its better ordering and for the conversion of Indians; 
then returned whence he came. 

1 Mem. Hist. Boston, I. p. 503. 2 Lechford, p. 86. 


THE SUIT OF TEE DOLPHIN. 


277 


The disposition of the Bay authorities to act 
promptly in the direkion they thought to be right, 
whether it was legal or not, had been illustrated 
within sixty days of the arrival of Bayley. A 
Frenchman, whose name has not come down to us,^ 
w’as suspected of being an incendiary. Nothing was 
proved against him ; but he was compelled to pay 
the cost of the so called court of justice, stand in the 
pillory, have both ears cut off, and give £500 bonds 
for good behavior ! 

Bayley and his consignee were arrested ; and they 
had to surrender a part of the ship’s cargo, subject to 
the findings of the court, before they could be re- 
leased. The trial came off in the meeting house.^ 
It was at a special session, before all the magistrates, 
and a jury of the principal men.^ After giving her 
testimony, Constance retired to her chamber at Major 
Gibones’ house. 

It was argued upon the one side, that Madame 
La Tour ought not to go to St. John ; that it would 
make trouble with Charnace. Upon the other side, 
the facts were presented, and the justice of the claim. 
In making the plea for Madame La Tour, the Eev- 
erend John Wilson created a great sensation, by an- 
nouncing the news, which had just arrived, of the 
battle of Marston Moor, July second. 

1 Savage’s Police Records, p. 18. 

2 Plaine Dealing^ p. 84, indicates this as the place of holding the 
great quarter courts. 

3 Hanney’s Acadia, p. 166. 


278 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


The jury gave Madame La Tour £2000 damages. 
The attached cargo proved to be worth only £1100 ; 
and the Boston merchants took £700 of that, for 
three ships to escort, vi et armis, Madame to her 
husband.^ 

The delays of the law kept Constance in Boston 
longer than had been anticipated. Socially, a great 
number were added to her friends. A profound re- 
spect filled her mind for the deep piety, and good 
sense of the men she met. The possibilities of a new 
country opened before her. It cost only £20, to 
make a good settlement for a family of four persons. 
At Kodislan, Eoger Williams’ country, that amount 
of money would buy one hundred acres of good land ; 
and if one chose to put part of the money into fur- 
nishing his log cabin, he could have three years in 
which to pay for the land, by adding one fifth to his 
purchase money. The £30 paid to Blaxton for all 
the Shawmut peninsula, save six acres reserved, had 
already proved a sagacious investment. 

The heart of Constance was full of those plans for 
New France, which had they been successful would 
have put a new face upon Acadia, making it one of 
the most thriving States of the world. She had 
thrown off the French notion of dividing the soil 

1 Alderman Berkly of Loudon, — Captain Bayley’s principal, — 
soon afterwards arrested Governor Winthrop’s son Stephen, the Re- 
corder of the Court, and Captain James Weld, one of the jury, when 
they visited England ; and would have made them much trouble 
by legal proceedings, — which in that age were more lawless in 
London than in Boston, — had not Sir Henry Vane interfered. 


THE SUIT OF THE DOLPHIN, 


279 


between lords ; and sought to build up in Acadia the 
domestic home, the Christian home of Protestant 
faith, assuring to each settler an ownership of the 
soil, — so laying the foundation of permanent pros- 
perity. 

Instead of the mere handful of four hundred 
French emigrants to Acadia, who naked of means 
broke the ground, with determination not to give the 
lie to the traditions of thrifty France, — now about 
one hundred thousand in number, all descended from 
the four hundred old Acadians, — we should have 
had a grand Protestant French nation, who even if 
under English rule would exercise a vast influence 
upon this continent. But upon the other hand, by 
the time this feeble band of four hundred had in- 
creased to two thousand, the English colonies south 
had a population of more than a quarter of a million. 
The English themselves neglected Acadia, when it 
came into their possession ; and it has been accorded 
no such place in the world’s history, as it had in the 
dreams and wise plans of Constance. Since each of 
the original French colonists is now represented by 
two hundred and fifty souls, her work would have 
become one of the great world-forces had she not so 
early won the crown of martyrdom.^ 

Constance was, at the time of her second visit to 
Boston, in all the flush and fire of the earlier years of 
her womanhood ; at twenty eight, — of modest de- 

1 Consult M. Rameau, Colonie Feodale en America. L’Acadie. 
Paris, 1877. Pages 272, 273, 354, 360-62. 


280 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


meanor, of singular beauty, with eyes which became 
one of the traditions of the Bay, of clear cut religious 
character, of strong personal magnetism, and the 
mental acuteness and practical benevolence of Anne 
Hutchinson, — without her taste for discussing doubt- 
ful, difficult, and nonessential points in theology, and 
without her sharpness of speech. Ho wonder that 
Madame La Tour won the hearts of Winthrop and 
Cotton and the eminent men of the colony. 

Of all the noble women figuring in the early Eec- 
ords, there is no one to whom so high praise is given' 
by every historian alluding to her, as Constance of 
Acadia. The men of that day, who had it in them 
to found a nation, looked upon her as every way their 
equal in tlie handling of affairs. And Louis the 
king, and the intriguers at his court, accounted her 
a full match, — to be overcome only by heavy artil- 
lery. She must be met by battalions, as Joan of 
Arc. 

It is not of my choosing,” said Constance to 
Margarett Gibones, as she embarked for Castle La 
Tour ; “ but I must go, and engage in this warfare.” 


CASTINE. 


281 


XXXIL 

CASTIXE. 

"XT ^HEN General La Tour declined to be ironed 

^ ^ and bundled alive into the St. Francis and 
the Bastile, Roland Capon certified to the fact that lie 
declined, and the certificate was sent to Louis XIIL 
by the St. Francis. 

Charnacd returned to the Bay of the Rio Hermoso,^ 
not a little out of humor. He cannot be said to have 
been of violent temper, unless at times ; but his self 
will now and then got the better of him, and main- 
tained itself in a quiet way for a long time against 
his reason and his conscience. It had been perhaps 
this great moral blunder, which was the cause of all 
his woes. His early decision to follow Palladio in- 
stead of Constance, was, in part, a decision not to give 
up his will to a woman. He could decide for him- 
self, and he did decide. 

When Fra Marie saw, at the landing, that his 
master was out of tune, it pleased his humor to make 
the Governor more so, by placing in a conspicuous 
position the £50 sedan, which Winthrop had shipped 

1 Charnac^ made an elaborate attempt, in his correspondence 
and official reports, to revive the name given to the Penobscot by 
Spanish explorers, — Rio Hermoso, the Beautiful River. 


282 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


to Pentagotlet as an offset for the damages and chagrins 
of Passageewakeag. 

Charnacd was furious. He had hated sedans, — 
then recently invented, — since he saw the one by 
which Constance escaped at La Kochelle. 

“ A Puritan city in truth ! ” he said, his nostrils ex- 
panding, and his lips curling in scorn. “ The Gover- 
nor takes a gift from a pirate, and bestows it on the 
chief magistrate of a neighboring jurisdiction, in pay- 
ment of a just debt. If I were in the second-hand 
furniture business, I would ask Winthrop to send out 
his pirates, and bring me twelve dozen such chairs as 
this ; and then I ’d call it square between us.” 

He took up a four foot birch stick from the hearth- 
side, and laid it across his knees ; as he sat fronting 
the low fire, upon that early September night. 
Ciphering upon it, he asked Marie, — 

“ Did you give him a receipt for the bill of 
damages ? ” 

“ Certainly not. I gave him plenty of palaver for 
his present, and put the bill in my pocket. We 
shall, I suppose, collect it, — after we take Fort 
La Tour.” 

"The saints sink La Tour!” exclaimed Charnac^, 
throwing his birch upon the fire. When the fresh 
blaze lighted up the room, and sent the deep shadows 
slinking behind the tables and benches, the Governor 
of Acadia arose and strode up and- down the low long 
room, — his shadow moving up and down the south 
wall. 


CASTINE, 


283 


" I Ve just reckoned,” he said to Marie, " that it 
will take thirteen dozen and four of this sample to 
pay my bill. If I had enough of them, it would pay 
me to go into the business. You can take the pin- 
nace, the St. Joe, to-morrow, and, under my hand and 
seal, ask the Puritans to send me down twelve dozen 
sedans of this pattern. Then I ’ll charter a Bos- 
ton ship, and hire Winthrop for a supercargo ; and 
have him go round to all the viceroys in the world 
and their sisters, and peddle them out. I suppose the 
Bay people would rather pay in barter than in money ; 
and they ’ll make something handsome in disposing 
of them.” 

Early next morning, pacing up and down in front 
of his blazing hearth, waiting for the breakfast call, 
he said to his apparently obsequious companion in 
the office, — Marie, I have decided to teach the 
Tarratines the use of firearms ; then let the Puritans 
look to it, if they impose on their neighbors. You 
may set an effigy of John Cotton in the sedan ; and 
give the thing to our Indians to shoot at.” 

The wickerwork was taken out, and made up into 
pots for catching silver eels ; and the sedan, and the 
puritan preacher in it, were shot to pieces within a 
few months. 

For downright lying, commend me to the Protes- 
tants,” said Francisco Brogi to the Governor. Ma- 
dame La Tour was upon the Dolphin, after all.” 

Fra Marie, in the St. Joe, went to Boston with 
ten men, before Constance left ; and demanded that 


284 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Endicott should allow no aid to be rendered in send- 
ing her to St. John. 

She is,” he reported, the cause of all La Tour’s 
contempt and rebellion ; and her flight from France 
was contrary to the order of the king.” ^ 

Marie had no hope of getting Constance from 
Gibones and Hawkins and Winthrop in their own 
town, — particularly under the guns of the Castle 
garrison. But he did expect to learn when she would 
sail. Her escort narrowly escaped attack upon the 
open seas, by the failure of the fleet’s commander to 
take the wind according to Marie’s calculation. 

Ex-Governor Winthrop was gathering his apples, 
when Marie sailed down the harbor; and Governor 
Charnac4 was at his farm up the Biguyduce, — when 
the envoy returned from observing the lay of the land 
for making a French attack on Boston whenever 
occasion should serve. The French, though few in 
Acadia, did not doubt their ability to take whatever 
they wanted in America by help of the home govern- 
ment. 

In all of Marie’s acquaintance with Charnac^, he 
had never known him to be so enraged. The Gover- 
nor did well to be angry. About the time Marie left 
for Boston, Charnac^ in cruising came upon Messrs. 
Vine of Saco, Shirt of Pemaquid, and Wamerton of 
Mason’s Grant, en route for St. John, as they said, 
to collect bills from La Tour. Charnac^ kept them as 
prisoners for several days ; experimenting upon them, 

1 Hubbard, second ed., 487. 


CASTINE. 


285 


as to how they liked the different kinds of Boston 
dishes, — which his cook was attempting upon Fra 
Marie’s suggestion. Wamerton was of ungovernable 
temper, and, upon his return from St. John, picked up 
twenty men well armed, and went to the Governor’s 
farm. The laborers ran for the house. The irate 
New Hampshire man rapped with knuckles of gran- 
ite. The laborers fired, killing Wamerton and another 
man, and wounding several more. The building 
and outhouses were burned, and the cattle and farm- 
animals killed, and the crops destroyed. 

Marie was sent back to Boston with a threat, that 
the Governor of Acadia would burn every colonial 
ship venturing east of the Penobscot. Endicott wrote 
a fierce letter in reply. Marie was sent to Versailles 
with Endicott’s letter, and a long account of the out- 
rage upon the fort-farm. The French court returned 
a dignified letter, stating that they would help him 
against La Tour, but they could not properly make 
war with the English on account of his cows and 
keepers and fodder.^ 

Charnac^ had no taste for farming. He loved to 
wander over the fertile lands, and the agreeable envi- 
rons of the fort.2 A taste to be always shooting 
something was now developed in him by his mood. 
He frequented the cranberry meadows, to watch for 
wild geese settling near. 

1 The farm is said, in the Wamerton account, to have been called 
Penobscot, — very likely on account of its being a “rocky place.” 
It was at the head of the Northern Bay, on the Biguyduce. 

2 Charlevoix. 


286 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


The Indians fringed the rivers with their weirs; 
no small shipments of fish were made to Europe. 
Charnace was in no temper to study ; and he en- 
gaged in fishing, or almost anything that offered, to 
take up his time. He was dissatisfied with himself 
and everybody else. He had a work to do, not to his 
mind ; to the end — that his mind might be suited. 
His moral sensibilities were in his way; his mind 
was at war with itself. 

It being his wish to inure himself to every kind of 
hardship, until he should be as tough as an Indian, 
— knowing not what strain there might be upon his 
nervous system in months next coming, — he as- 
cended, before the winter set in, the Eio Hermoso, 
upon a long hunting trip; thinking, devout as he 
was, that he would undertake the conversion of the 
Tarratines in their own country. He was perhaps in 
as good a frame as he could well expect to be, either 
to convert savages or to shoot moose. Wild meat 
might be prepared for the expedition ; and wild In- 
dians made into allies, whatever might become of 
their souls. 


BIO HERMOSO. 


287 


XXXIIL 


RIO HERMOSO. 



XTERIXG, by the still reaches of the Hermoso, 


^ into the mighty wilderness, Charnace became at 
once more robust in body and spirit. There had come 
to be now no doubt in his mind, that peoples and in- 
dividuals, when brought into direct contact with the 
Word of God and the All-revealing Spirit by prayer, 
were as likely to carry forward life’s duties intel- 
ligently as if guided by any Vicar or General not 
omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, or infinite in 
wisdom and love. 

He could, however, and would cling to what was 
highest and holiest in the life of a Jesuit missionary. 
Might he wholly renounce his ambitions of glory in 
the Old World ? Could he wholly devote himself to 
the improvement of the Acadian aborigines ? This 
work, although not so much to his mind as fingering 
the court at Versailles, was possible. He would now 
stop at the mouth of the Kenduskeag stream, where 
he might sometime establish the mission of St. Igna- 
tius, and persuade Indian youth to go down the 
river to Era Leo’s school.^ 

^ The copper sheet, 8X10, which was placed by the Franciscan 
in the foundation of his new school building after the death of 


288 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Cbarnac6 had ceased to use the devotional manu- 
als of his church, contenting himself with occasion- 
ally reading in the Psalms of David, — which had 
just enough of a warlike vindictive spirit to suit him, 
— and extempore prayer, or the prayer of our Lord. 

It was when he was teaching the Kenduskeag In- 
dians the Lord’s prayer, that he came to a perfect 
stand still. In expounding to the savages, he caught 
a glimpse of his own savage unforgiving spirit ; and 
telling his hearers that there was no more of the 
prayer — for that day — he climbed to the highest 
point of land south of the Kenduskeag, and there 
reviewed the situation. 

His present feeling toward La Tour was that of 
contempt. He had seen men since going abroad. 
La Tour was a mere backwood’s man, fit for the com- 
pany of the Indians, but with no soul for art, poetry, 
literature, or even religion ; with absolutely no appre- 
ciation of the intellectual character and moral beauty 
of Constance. Charnac4 did not admit to himself, 
that there was jealousy at the bottom of his heart ; 
although he never could forget, that, when he caught 
a glimpse of Thomas ^ Kempis at Cape Sable, his 
first impulse had been to sabre his rival upon the 
spot. He did remember, — and it came up to him so 
vividly as the sun was going down over the vast for- 
est in the west, and the lights were changing on the 

Chamac^, erected by the Governor’s money, was discovered at Cas- 
tine in 1863 : — “1648, Jan. 8. I, Fra Leo, of Paris, Capuchin 
Missionary, laid this foundation in honor of our Lady of Hope. ” 


RIO HERMOSO. 


289 


stretches of the Hermoso, — that his heart had never 
ceased to beat with uncontrollable anguish whenever 
he thought of Constance, as connected even remotely 
with La Tour ; and that the name La Tour aroused 
the demon in his breast. 

He put it solely upon a suitable revenge for La 
Tour’s affront in raising the blockade, and defeating 
him in battle. He had been humiliated by his ad- 
versary in the eyes of Paris, — not to allude to the 
Hew Englanders. 

When he sat gloomily among the saturnine war- 
riors at the night fire, he felt a strange sympathy for 
the revenges they cherished in their hearts. The 
flaming fires of the aurora were lighting up the north, 
like the kindlings of war. He could not, however, 
lose himself in sleep, without asking, — “What would 
Constance say, if she could read my heart? She 
would pray for me, just as she used to do when we 
were children.” 

Next morning, although it was a sharp air, he took 
his long gun, and walked up the right bank of the 
Kenduskeag. He paused on the verge of the great 
cliff of sheer rock, a little way up the picturesque 
stream ; and under an arbor vitae shelter kneeled to 
pray. He stopped short at “ Thy will be done.” He 
impiously said, — “My will be done;” and strode 
grimly along through the thick forest, following the 
windings of the water. 

It had been made clear to him, that his intellectual 
knowledge of God had never led him to submit his 
19 


290 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


will; that his tastes, his ambitions, had been his 
own ; that even his religious exercises, if not looked 
upon as meritorious, were at least pleasing to his po- 
etic sentiment, which was gratified by the thought of 
a God somewhere in the universe. Conscious of self- 
seeking, he saw now that his own love for Constance 
had been selfish. He had desired his own happi- 
ness, not hers. 

It made him intolerably wretched, when he dis- 
covered there, — under a wild apple tree, gnarled and 
scrubby, upon the margin of a deep pool where he 
was watching the leaping of the trout, — that the 
true definition of friendship is an unselfish love. He 
had never even loved Constance, he had loved him- 
self To gratify himself he had desired her; as if 
this messenger of God had no other mission than to 
become his companion. 

Then he wept with the strong agony of a man in 
the fulness of his years. He could not make up his 
mind to accept the inevitable outcome of his intellec- 
tual processes. His will had never been thwarted 
by any one save Constance ; and the contest was not 
even yet decided between them. It was to be de- 
cided soon. His will rose straight against the wall. 

“ I will,” he said, “ at least be frank with God. If 
I mean ' my will be done,’ I will not say ‘Thy will be 
done.’ ” 

He strode on with his long gun, and his heart of 
iron. He moved over the charred highlands ; amid 
burdocks, thistles, and fire weed killed by. frosts; 


RIO HERMOSO. 


291 


amid hazel clumps and small birches, — or under 
gaunt hornbeams towering over the burnt district. 
He gazed on the desolate rocks bemoaning their stern 
destiny, under bare branches swaying in the chilling 
wind. Then he turned toward the sunlighted, gently 
moving stream ; over which dead trees — rising 
weird-like above the live growth — were leaning 
to catch their own images mirrored below. 

He saw the timid fawn approach to drink; and 
there was game in all his pathless wandering, — but 
he never discharged his piece that day. He stood 
motionless, if he saw a fox stealing along the edge of 
an opening, or if a buck was nibbling tufts of grass 
upon the sunny side of a thicket of hemlocks. “ These 
creatures,” he said, ‘"do not think. They have no 
sense of right and wrong ; no conscience, no God.” 

He came upon a wolf, in the great patch of burned 
timber five miles from the mouth of the stream. Ee- 
maining in one position, — as if he had been a dead 
tree, or a man cut out of the heartless rocks, — he 
saw the wolf make a find of a young doe killed 
yesterday, for which the Indian hunter had not yet 
returned. The wolf slunk away to call his pack. 
Charnacd shouldered the doe, carried it some distance 
and threw it across a boulder ; then watched for the 
wolfs return. The pack killed the wolf, which had 
— as they believed — lied to them. 

“ If all human liars,” said the philosophic hunter, 
to the avenging wolves, “ had been treated the same 
way, I should not be here to see.” 


292 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA, 


“ I cannot pray honestly, if I have no true desire 
that God’s will may be done,” repeated Charnac^ to his 
shadow, when before sunset he had crossed the stream, 
and stood upon the hill he climbed the evening be- 
fore. “ I can, however, read Thomas a Kempis for 
my devotions.” 

He opened first at this page, then that, finding 
nothing to which he would give willing assent : — 
“ The glory and privilege of a good man consists in 
the testimony of his own mind; for this is a perpetual 
feast and triumph.” “ Prosperity itself cannot procure 
ease and content to a guilty, and self-condemning 
breast.’’ The man thou seest so gay, so seemingly 
full of delight, is galled and stung within.” “Man 
himself is his own worst enemy.” 

In the evening, however, Charnac^ re-read all these 
passages, at the great fire ; and, out of the fulness of 
his heart, preached a long sermon to the Indian warriors. 

Next morning he resumed his trip up the river, 
ascending the West Branch. Upon the great slide 
of Katahdin, so desolate, he dreamed of Constance? 
In his waking moments, — it was the Sabbath, — he 
^ asked himself : — 

“ Has she always climbed upward, since coming to 
Acadia ? Have I stood still ? Or am I even worse ? 
If I am worse, do I care ? ” 

Charnacd, upon Lake Millenoket, moved about in 
the shadow of the planet; setting on fire one after 
another of the wooded islands in the night. The 
fringes of fire along the water side pleased his wild 


RIO HERMOSO. 


293 


humor ; and the great illumination, when the wind 
arose and the fires were well under way, made the 
heavens black as sackcloth, — which also pleased his 
grim humor. The crackling flames, the leaping lights, 
diverted him, like a storm of fire. 

The run down the Hermoso was soon made; his 
last night of camping being upon the heights near 
those great ledges that rise on the east side of the 
Beautiful Eiver, a little above the mouth of the Ken- 
duskeag stream. The clouds of the first great snow 
fall were already filling the sky. 

By this time, Charnac^’s mental pendulum was 
swinging violently, uncontrollably, toward his great 
love. He would brook no obstacle. He had now 
decided it to be foolish for him to analyze his friend- 
ship for Constance, whether it were selfish or un- 
selfish ; he only knew, that his heart was desolate ; 
that he was going to a fort, — not to a home ; that 
he had no home, unless in the presence of Constance. 
Whether she might love him, was not to the point ; 
he loved her. He envied Castle La Tour every hour 
of joy in it. Ambitions were, for now, set one side ; 
he would first have a home. 

“ Luther,” he muttered through his teeth as he 
watched his shadow among the pines, when he walked 
in front of his great camp fire that night, embroiled 
the Holy Church, and disturbed all Europe, for the 
love he bore his wife. He was a domestic sort of a 
man, and he wanted to marry. I do not blame him. 
I want a home.” 


294 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Still, the next morning, gliding down the river 
in the fast falling snow, Charnacd could not but 
return to the question, whether Constance would 
smile upon him, when he should see her, now so 
soon. Could he hope to win her love, — by battle ? 
His secret life, — the state of his will before God 
and the spirit he exercised toward all made in God’s 
image, — must be such as Constance would approve ; 
or she would never love him. 

The course he was to pursue was, however, all 
marked out for him ; although he did not know it. 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 


295 


XXXIV. 

« 

ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 

■\T7IIEN Constance returned home after her long 
^ ^ absence of almost a year and a half, the body 
of Claude la Tour had been laid to rest upon the 
banks of the Ouangondy, to await the resurrection. 
Already many months had gone by ; and the grass 
had grown thriftily upon the new grave, and been 
nipped by the early frosts ; and the mound was now 
covered by dead leaves, and awaiting the snowfall. 

No change of earthly circumstances, not even the 
neighborhood of the death-angel, the absence of his 
wife, or the danger to his home, could quite subdue 
the never failing spirits of Charles la Tour; who, 
perhaps enlivened by his wife’s return, kept the 
castle roaring with his mirth for six weeks. Hen- 
rietta had spent the autumnal evenings upon the 
latest book order from England, — Fuller’s Holy 
and Profane State, and his Holy War ; and the last 
three books of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity; but 
La Tour had seized upon the works of Ben Jonson ; 
and the brightest of his retainers he drilled in Shak- 
spere, — in an illuminated clearing, thickly set about 


296 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


with hemlock and cedar, where the uproariousness of 
the evening theatricals would amuse his savages, 
without compromising the dignity of the military 
post he held under Louis XIII. That his King had 
already turned traitor to him who held Pentagouet 
for France, excited no wonder on La Tour’s part ; and 
hardly clouded the face of the gay Frenchman. 

Takouchin and Pitchibat brought news of the for- 
midable war preparations at the Bay of Kio Hermoso ; 
and La Tour bestirred himself in every way possible 
to prevent the fall of calamity. He had been put 
to great loss upon his season’s trade by Bayley’s 
delay in delivering his goods ; so that in August he 
had mortgaged his fort and all his real and personal 
property to Major Gibones for a £2500 loan. The 
goods at hand would be of little service till next 
season. La Tour, therefore, opened logging camps, 
and set his men to make the most of their winter ; 
then went to Boston to procure if practicable more 
ammunition, and — if it could be compassed — tem- 
porary service of men against Charnac4. 

He had no sooner gone, than Mirabaud and Ori- 
ani, friars whom La Tour still maintained in his alle- 
giance to Louis, began so to conduct themselves that 
Constance contemptuously sent them adrift, instead 
of hanging them, as the spies of Charnac^. They at 
once communicated with the enemy ; reporting La 
Tour as absent, — only fifty men in the fort, — and 
the magazine low.i In his later days, it was one of 

1 Consult Hanney’s Acadia, pp. 143, 170. 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 


297 


the stings in his unrest, that he had ever sent them 
into the fort ; but it was the knowledge Charnac^ had 
of her kindness of heart, that emboldened him to 
impose upon her. He did not believe that Constance 
would hang them. 

The hour had now come ; the favorable con- 
dition for an attack. When Charnac4 returned from 
his expedition up the Hermoso, he found, by no 
great penetration, that he was not wholly the mas- 
ter. He had set in motion influences now beyond 
his control. The great machine was whirling by a 
powder not his own. The slightest individual re- 
sistance on his part would grind him to powder. 
It was known to his Superior, that he could not 
quite be depended upon, that he might have ulte- 
rior views in regard to Constance. His Jesuitical 
secretary, Eoland Capon, was under instructions 
from head-quarters. Fra Marie, just then absent, 
was under instructions other than those of the Gov- 
ernor. And General Francisco Brogi, who had come 
out as chief ofiflcer to Charnac^, proved to be the 
special emissary of the Jesuit authorities in Paris ; 
and already, not knowing what he did, the Governor 
had placed him in practical charge of the war upon 
Castle La Tour. 

The war spirit could not now be quenched by any 
variation in the mood of Charnacd : who upon some 
days felt like a Governor carrying out a plan in the 
name of France ; and upon other days like a lover, 
not knowing how best to win his way; and again 


298 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


like a man with moral sense uppermost, — deter- 
mined to do right come what would. The con- 
science of Charnace was not unlike the moon; of 
varying phases of fulness, and occasionally eclipsed 
altogether. He was so susceptible to the influences 
by which he was surrounded, during December and 
January, that Charnacd felt very keenly the belittling 
circumstances in which he was placed. 

When alone with his God, he only lacked a little 
of courageously confessing that he had been in the 
wrong. He almost proposed to himself to do right 
by La Tour. He even dreamed one night, that he 
saw Constance surrounded by armed legions of angels ; 
and that they disappeared or reappeared according 
to his changing purpose, to do what was right or to 
continue in the wrong. 

Midwinter days, however, found him in the lawless 
temper of a feudal lord, who knew no will but his 
own. And he even placed his hand upon the re- 
morseless iron wheel, to make it move the faster, to 
crush Castle La Tour and Protestantism in Acadia. 
He could not stay its motion ; and he would not, if 
he could. He became inexpressibly tired of the great 
white world in which he lived, the interminable win- 
ter ; any thing but this. He was glad then, when he 
heard the report of the false friars, that the hour was 
drawing near for which they had waited. 

With explicit instructions to Brogi to spare life, 
and to insure that no harm should come to Con- 
stance, — to which the wily Jesuit soldier readily 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 299 

assented, — Charnace set sail in three ships for the 
St. John. 

In answer to the fire of the men-of-war, Constance 
took her place in one of the bastions, and directed the 
firing.^ Her first shot killed three men upon Char- 
nac^’s own ship ; and the second as many more. 
Charnace had forgotten that, when as a boy he had 
learned the artillery practice with Constance at La 
Eochelle, she had far surpassed him in the accuracy 
of her firing. 

By the time the ships had delivered their third 
broadside, with no more effect upon the stone fort 
than if they had fired into the rocky cliffs over- 
hanging the tide, the fort was all ablaze with guns. 
The ships were riddled. Twenty men were killed, 
and thirteen wounded. The water rushed in at the 
apertures made in the wooden walls by the cannon 
shot ; and still Castle La Tour maintained its deadly 
fire. The wind had sprung up from the east, and 
they could not get out of range without warping. 
They had to run ashore behind Bruyeres’ Point, 
to keep from sinking. Brogi’s confidence in his 
much boasted improved artillery which he had him- 
self selected had kept the ships in position too long. 
The great precision of the gun service from the fort 
gave occasion to the IN’ew England historians to speak 
gallant words for Madame La Tour.^ 

O 

1 Hanney’s Acadia, p. 170. 

2 There is, however, no occasion for the contrast made between 
the courage and military efficiency of Constance and her husband, 
by Hubbard, — pp. 493, 497. 


300 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Lemoine, one of the men who had visited Boston 
with Fra Marie, and who was not lacking in humor, 
was put in irons by the infuriated Brogi for ventur- 
ing to tell the pertinent story of John Josselyn, Gent., 
who gathered a live wasps’-nest in the woods on N’od- 
dle’s Island, mistaking it for fruit, growing like a 
pineapple. 

The shock of his defeat was to Charnac^ like the 
opening of the earth by powers of darkness below 
the crust. While the ships were repairing, making 
them safe to return to Pentagotiet, he went to the 
height of Partridge Island ; and there lay down under 
a juniper tree, more disconsolate than any disap- 
pointed man of God in far off ages. He was tho- 
roughly angry, — angry with himself, angry with La 
Tour, angry with Constance, angry with his Jesuits. 
But anger is the least of the evils of war. The dark- 
ness and ruin of the hour, the world of woe within 
him, had been preparing of long time. 

The more he thought of it, the more angry he be- 
came. He believed that he did well to be angry. 
Had he set up and worshipped the image of Con- 
stance in his heart for all these years, only to be 
beaten by her in a fair fight with great guns ? He 
had pictured her as still the angelic heroine of La 
Eochelle ; he had forgotten the generations of fighting 
blood in her veins. 

If he had now remaining in his bosom one unex- 
tinguished spark of manhood, he would take that fort, 
or die in doing it. Should he succeed, or not succeed, 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 


301 


after having been baffled so many times in his at- 
tempt to seize the person of Constance ? Lives 
might be lost; but many had been already lost. 
Why not more ? The death of the first was a vain 
sacrifice, unless he should finally succeed, even if 
more should perish. The worst elements in his 
heart were aroused by actual war. It was not now 
a matter of will, but of temper. 

It is not clear from the meagre records just when 
it was that he uttered it, but his secretary, Eoland 
Capon, reported that Charnacd had sworn by a great 
oath, that when he should capture the fort, he 
would hang Madame La Tour. The words were 
not forgotten. 

It occurred to Charnacd to reconnoitre. He would 
ascertain whether the fort might not be safely ap- 
proached by land through some cavin. As he was 
standing alone, he was seen by Constance, within 
gunshot of the inner bastion. Leaving Simon Imbert 
at the guns covering her pathway, she went out to 
meet him. Constance waved her kerchief for a truce 
flag; and when Charnacd responded by like signal, 
she advanced. 

Charnacd and Constance were of the same age. 
He could not but admire her womanly beauty, 
as well as her soldierly bearing; his very near- 
ness to the object of his passion, softened his 
heart. 

When within earshot, Constance asked, — and her 
tones were the same that had thrilled Charnacd to 


302 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


his finger tips in former years, — “ Can I be of any 
service in the relief of the wounded ? ” 

“ The only service you can render me, Constance, 
is to surrender yourself as my prisoner, and surrender 
the fortress.” 

The words of Constance were more effective even 
than her artillery. It is the tender loving words that 
break human hearts; not the harsh unkind words. 
Charnacd had now seen her of whom the world was 
not worthy. This vision, so suddenly appearing, 
then lost from sight, had the effect upon his mind 
of clearing it up, — showing him his moral bearings ; 
much as the mysterious shifting scenery of the coast, 
so often losing itself in a fog bank, looms out of the 
dissolving mist under a light land-breeze which lets 
in the sun. 

Eeturning to his solitary post upon the wretched 
flats of the Biguyduce, and walking up and down 
among the gloomy fir trees, the sad and fierce Char- 
nacd lived long in the two months next following. 
What he thought and felt, — when his conscience 
was full, and when it waned, — when Mars paled 
his fires, — when Venus glowed in the sky above 
him, — all these bitter secrets of his lonely hours 
had no perceptible effect in making Charnacd less 
susceptible to the influences by which he was in- 
cessantly surrounded. 

His despicable tools, — whose tool he was, — his 
friars, his priests, his brotherhood of Indian teachers, 
and his very Indians, and the very few womenfolk 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 


303 


in the settlement, — all derided him with their eyes, 
their tones, their hems, their haws, their gait, and 
by what they did not say, and did not do. Char- 
nacd felt that his kingdom was departing. He 
wondered what his King would say. What his 
God had already said, he did not hear or know’. 

They were all angry. It would have been political 
madness to have held them back. Eichelieu’s echo 
again sounded upon the Bay. Charnacd felt a strange 
kinship for the arbitrary spirit of the great minister. 
Singularly introspective, he questioned his own con- 
science, — “Am I not hard, haughty, tyrannical? 
Does not my repulse make it necessary for me to 
steel my heart, for the glory of God ? ” His papal 
piety began to assert its claims.. The Mother Church 
pleaded over against Constance. 

Word came one day, that his uncle, the Baron 
Charnacd, had been killed in fhe trenches in the 
siege of Breda; his soldier spirit leading him to 
risk himself in a cause to which he w^as devoted, — 
even though his service as ambassador might have 
excused him. His brave heart had been carried into 
France, and buried in the church of the Carmelites 
at Angers. 

Upon that March day when this news came, the 
Governor of Acadia had been trying to school his 
mind by prayer, and the reading of God’s word, to 
seek the divine companionship, to win the promise 
that the Holy One would abide with those loving 
Him. How his heart was torn in pieces by this 


304 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


affliction, bringing up as it did all the emptiness of 
his uncle’s heart after his wife died, the long years 
of distressing melancholy, now happily ended by 
death. 

What could he now do, otherwise than reaffirm all 
his old vows of love to Constance, and capture her in 
the Castle? And if he himself should be slain in 
the battle, would not that be infinitely better than 
to live as now ? His heart drew him back from every 
thought of relinquishing his undertaking. Charnac^ 
could not but admire the virility of his fair foe. 
Were she a man, what blame could attach to her 
that she had fought for the place she called her 
home ? It was his fault, if he had not taken the 
fort; not hers, that she had defended it. She was 
a woman worth winning, even at the cannon’s 
mouth. 

Then suddenly he saw the clouds breaking against 
the heights of the Megunticut in the west, like the 
great rollers breaking upon the outermost rocks seen 
down the Bay. This presaged a storm : so his mood 
changed, — with the changing weather. His early 
inclination to the priesthood, his early rejection by 
Constance, his life-long flame of love unquenchable 
for this ablest as well as most amiable and most self 
devoted of womankind, had kept his heart single. 
Why should he marry ? 

Then it was, that there dawned upon him with 
some fulness the great thought of a divine presence 
filling his solitude, the dawning of a better hope, — 


ARTILLERY PRACTICE, 


305 


but even this he could not free from the influence of 
Constance. He vowed most solemnly, and recorded 
it : — 

God do to me as I would do to Charles la Tour, 
if I ever once think of taking to myself a wife. But 
my soul craves company in this wilderness of woods 
close upon the wilderness of waves. And be La Tour 
dead or alive, I will see Constance; and be of her 
company, — as I was when we were babes crawling 
out of our cradles into each other’s houses, as when 
we went to school hand in hand, as we were for 
seven blissful years in our teens, as we were after 
that when we argued theology for more than three 
years, — as I was until my demoniacal Jesuit con- 
fessor — whom may God call to an' account for my 
soul at the Great Day — made it a point of con- 
science that I forsake an angel and keep company 
with him and his infernal companions, — promising 
me high usefulness for the honor of God in establish- 
ing his kingdom in a new world. When I get back 
to Constance, from whom I never should have been 
separated, then my falsely directed life will be led 
aright ; then I will seek unto God anew ; then I will 
be at rest in God. Hot now, 0 my soul, I cannot 
rest in God now.” 

Then he cursed himself for the life he had led, — 
as bad as La Tour’s, a mere hunting for pelts and 
provinces, without one hour of God and peace at 
heart. Then the wretched man vowed, that, as an 
earthly means to divine illumination, he would in 
20 


306 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


taking Castle La Tour keep Saint Constance chained 
in the chapel ; and there kneel before her. And if,” 
closes this strange paper, — written under the dis- 
tracting claims of the Governor’s duty as an officer 
of France, of his churchly relations, his conscience, 
and his love, — “ she is silent to me forever, and 
only now and then drops a tear — like the sham 
Virgin which Fra Cupavo has made for our Indians, 
— I shall have all the peace I can have in this 


CONSTANCE AND CHARLES. 


307 


XXXV. 


CONSTAXCE AND CHARLES OF LA ROCHELLE. 



LONE with her Guardian Angel, and in the 


^ presence of Him who is called the Heavenly 
Bridegroom, was Constance at the dawn of the anx- 
ious Easter morning. Charles la Tour had returned 
empty handed from Boston. He had no present 
money; he had no further mortgage to offer; and 
all the fine talk of the two days’ meeting about the 
golden rule and helping the distressed — backed up 
by Scripture — was explained to him in Boston, as 
applicable only to those who could pay cash or give 
sound security. La Tour now, therefore, turned to 
the Indian trade, making an early trip to the woods, 
hoping to convert his goods into furs, and his furs 
into money. He had remained in his home but a 
few days, — just after the defeat of Charnacd. His 
promised early return would relieve Constance. But 
Charnacd had now reappeared a few days before 
Easter, to make an attack upon the land side of the 
fortress. He had been repulsed, without having gained 
the slightest advantage in three days’ fighting. 

At day dawn upon the morning of the Resurrec- 
tion, Sunday, April the thirteenth, Constance had 


308 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


assembled all tbe garrison, who were not on guard, 
for chapel service. While singing the twenty third 
psalm : — 

que quand au val viendroye 
D’ombre de mort, rien de mal ne craindroye : 

Car auec moy tu es k chacune heure ; — 

the alarm was suddenly given, — that their foes were 
scaling the walls. 

When the forces of Charnac^ drew off Saturday 
night with loss, they held for a short time as prisoner, 
then released, a soldier from the Perouse near La 
Tour’s old home, in fact one of his early mates. It 
was through his treachery, that Brogi was to he ad- 
mitted within the palisades at day break ; when, it 
was believed, the walls could be scaled by the superior 
force without meeting resistance. Charnacd himself 
saw the traitor; and was satisfied that the fortress 
could be carried with little or no loss at that early 
hour. Anxiously watching through the most of the 
night, he secured the early movement of the men. 
General Brogi had the work in hand, — his own life 
in pledge to Charnac^ that all should be well. The 
Acadian Governor then awaited the result ; spending 
the moments ostensibly with his confessor. Fra Cu- 
pavo, who had been selected for his office mainly for 
the light hold his religion had upon him, and his 
lack of strictness in meddling with the conscience of 
Charnace. 

Upon the moment of alarm, Constance rushed out 
of chapel at the head of her fierce Huguenots to 


CONSTANCE AND CHARLES. 


309 


avenge the treason of her guard. Twelve of the 
enemy were killed at the first fire, and many wounded. 
Twice, the invaders were forced hack to the wall; 
then advanced again, being reinforced by the soldiers 
pouring over the top of the fort. By a fresh onset, 
and the transcendent power of courage, the Hugue- 
nots repulsed the foe the third time. Constance 
climbed the wall, to defend it at the head of her 
garrison.^ 

General Brogi was led by the boldness of Madame 
La Tour and her followers to believe that the garri- 
son must be larger than had been reported. He pro- 
posed the capitulation of the fort upon honorable 
terms ; offering life and liberty. To this Constance 
acceded, to save' the blood of her men. She was 
also moved to do it, from having a principal artery 
cut by a buckshot. 

Brogi had been long ill tempered and angry at 
what he thought the indecision of Charnacd ; and he 
would now make an end. Had he not been sent 
across the seas for this hour ? Pretending that he 
had been deceived into offering terms by a false 
showing of the size of the garrison, he gave orders to 
hang the men at the door of the chapel ; and even 
put a cord round the neck of Madame La Tour, — 
who was pressing her thumb over the severed artery. 

Charnacd had distrusted Brogi from the beginning; 
knowing how pertinaciously bad men were selected 

1 Charlevoix, Histoire et Description Genemle de La Nouvelle 
France. 5 vols. Paris. 1744. VoL II. page 197. 


310 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


for the worst of work, as the most self devoted and 
the holiest of priests were set to some work for which 
they were best fitted. But he had felt that he was in 
the toils, and could not escape. He had tried to 
assure himself, that there was no danger in war, that 
no resistance could be made at the early Sabbath 
hour. When he heard the sharp rattle of musketry 
he hurried to the fort, his conscience sounding thun- 
der peals. Volley on volley alarmed him. But his 
heart failed him, until all was suddenly still; and 
then it failed him. Who could tell what he might 
see next moment? 

Charnac^ entered the chapel, to which Constance 
had retired. He killed Brogi with one blow of his 
sabre. The hanging at the chapel door ceased. 

He was now alone with Constance ; he had been 
too long alone, stilling his mind for the agitations of 
the hour in which he should meet her. Constance 
was seated in the chair, by which she had stood at 
the morning service leading her soldiery in prayer to 
Him who rolled the rock away by angelic hands, — 
to Him, who was thought by Mary to be the gar- 
dener, as He walked among the flowers upon that 
spring morning sixteen hundred years ago. 

Charnacd stood a moment uncovered. He saw 
that Constance pressed her thumb upon a clot of 
blood, with her clothing opened to the wound. It 
was only a moment. He kneeled, as if in adoration ; 
and was silent. 

“ Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy 


CONSTANCE AND CHARLES, 


311 


laden; and I will give you rest:” — uttering these 
words, Constance removed her thumb from the wound, 
and was dead. The open Bible, out of which she 
had been reading to her soldiers, was covered by her 
life blood. 


312 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXXVI. 

THE TIDES OF FUNDY. 

RA CUPAVO, the rosy and rotund keeper of 



J- Charnace’s conscience, waited long for his vic- 
torious penitent to appear at the confessional next 
morning. Meeting his master at about noon, he 
ventured, — with his features smoothed in the at- 
tempt to smile with a solemnity befitting the sub- 
ject, and ducking his head, and bending forward his 
shoulders until he formed a short crescent, — to 
remark : 

“Your excellency has not forgotten the confes- 
sional, I am confident; there are many cares in 
conquest.” 

The Governor made no reply, except by a look, 
which said, — “ Go with me.” 

Uneasy in his gait — for he had come from Gen- 
eral La Tour’s pipe of Bourdeaux — he followed 
slowly the firm even tread of Charnac^ into Mad- 
ame la Tour’s library. 

“ I wish to have you witness my signature to these 
papers ; your hand is well known, and carries weight 
with it in the Order of Jesus and at Versailles. ” 


THE TIDES OF FUNDY. 


313 


Hastily signing his full name, Charles de Menou, 
Sieur Hilaire Charnac^ to the two papers, — the 
heavy friar nimbly peeping over his shoulders, — 
he handed one of them to his father confessor to 
witness. 

Cupavo had at a glance read too much. He was 
sobered. It was a document by which the money 
value of all the real and personal property cap- 
tured, — some £10,000, — was to be made over to 
Charles, the son of Constance, under the guardianship 
of Lamotte the young Huguenot clergyman, whom 
Constance had selected to serve as her child’s tutor. 

His reverence eagerly snatched the proffered parch- 
ment, and with eyes shot by wine and rage, he was 
about to argue the point with the conscience of the 
Governor, which had been occasionally in his keep- 
ing when not in eclipse. To be sure Charnace had 
confessed little since his return from France; now, 
indeed, it was time for the Jesuit to assert the claims 
of religion, — and speak he would. 

Charnac4 had stepped back a pace or two: "My 
holy and venerated father, and, during so many 
years, my conscience, — if it is your part to guide 
me to heaven, it is my part to rule you while on 
earth. Time is of the utmost value to-day. You will 
witness the paper, without commenting upon it.” 

Cupavo saw that his master was in no mood for 
trifling or even delay. StiU, as if the Governor’s 
conscience were incarnate in him, and he must be 
heard, his mouth began to pucker, preparing to 


314 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


make one or two brief observations in the way of 
remonstrance. 

He was however interrupted by a pistol shot, 
taking off the lobe of his right ear. 

Fra Conscience cried, — “As I am a man, I will 
speak against this infamy. Will you snatch from 
the Church this heretical plunder, and endow with it 
a Huguenot whelp ? ” 

He would have said more ; but the lobe of his left 
ear was cut off; — and another pistol was in hand. 
He signed the paper; and stood transfixed in his 
place. 

Placing a guard over his conscience, Charnac4 
within the hour had the child of Constance, the 
guardian Lamotte, and Henrietta, on board one of 
La Tour’s cruisers, which rode in the harbor, con- 
stantly armed and provisioned ; and they were under 
way for Bretagne. 

The other paper, which was witnessed later, was, 
with other documents, sealed in a package addressed 
to General La Tour; and committed to the care of 
Madame La Tour’s chaplain. 

As the sun was going down, Charnace embarked 
in the canoe, which Constance had so often used in 
her missionary journeys among the Indians up the 
river ; and the body of Constance, attired for burial, 
was placed in it. Her faithful chaplain was at the 
prow, and her childhood companion at the stern. A 
grave had been made ready upon the hither side of 
the river, under the moaning pines. 


THE TIDES OF FUNDT. 


315 


A shot from a masked battery belonging to the 
defences of the fort, upon the banks above, struck 
the canoe mid river; and the body of Constance 
was borne down the current upon the swift tides of 
Fundy. The martial fir trees bristling on the heights, 
the sombre spruces, the rocks dark and shaggy with 
sea weed, and the screaming sea mews witnessed the 
burial of Constance. 


316 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXXVII. 


IN THE ICE. 



'HE eccentricity of Charnacd’s conduct toward 


the keeper of his conscience excited no small 
wonder in Fra Le Vilin, to whom alone Cupavo, upon 
his return to Pentagoiiet, told the secret of his ears, 
and what he knew about Charnace’s love for the 
Huguenot woman. In thinking over the conduct 
of their Governor, during many months, indeed 
ever since La Tour escaped his blockade, it seemed 
rational to suppose — if their own combined reason 
could be relied upon as sound — that Charnac4 was 
not what he used to be, certainly not in his relations 
to their Order. 

Not long after his return to the Penobscot, Char- 
nac4 took two Indians and went out in a canoe upon 
the Bay ; whether to search for seals, or to make his 
way to the extreme southwestern headlands, where 
he had talked of fortifying in encroachment upon 
English ground, is not now known. The Indians 
were Joe Takouchin, whom Charnac^ had brought 
from the St. J ohn ; and young Madockawando, after- 
wards principal sachem of the Tarratines in the days 
of Baron Castine. When they left the fort in the 


IN THE ICE. 


317 


gray of the morning, in passing Nautilus Island 
about half a mile out, Charnac^ called the attention 
of the Indians to the dense growth of pines, and to 
the pleasant gurgling of the waters upon the shingle 
and the base of the rocks. And for a mile or more, 
he kept turning himself in the canoe to look at it ; 
and finally reversed his position, so that he could 
gaze upon it without turning. As the sun came 
up, a singularly bright cloud overhung the pines, 
and remained there till the island was out of sight. 

It had been a long cold winter ; and the ice in the 
Penobscot was late in breaking up, — indeed Char- 
nacd did 'not know that the recent warm days and 
southerly rains had started the great body of ice in 
the river, until he was in the midst of the advance 
guard of that northern army which fioated down upon 
the slack tide. A strong south-west wind, rising 
toward night, choked the Bay with ice. 

The night was spent upon one of the Fox Islands ; 
where Charnacd had formerly erected a comfortable 
shelter for the convenience of his huntsmen and fish- « 
ing folk. The wind grew sharper, bringing in a hurt- 
ling sleet in the early part of the night. 

The direction of Loyola to Mazzi of Brescia had 
been running in the mind of Charnac^ all the 
evening : “ When you wake this night, stretch your- 
self out as if you were dead ; and think to yourself 
how you will wish to have lived when that time 
really draws near.” The going down of the sun 
had brought to Charnacd a strange horror. He was 


318 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


at bottom the cause of the death of Constance. Her 
Guardian Angel had already avenged her, in the tor- 
ture of soul he had endured since the morning of the 
Lord’s resurrection. The nightfall now found him 
agonizing under the thought, that God had with- 
drawn the light forever ; but when the morning 
rose, he said, — “ Heaviness may endure for a night, 
but joy cometh in the morning.” 

Soon after day dawn, Charnac^ descried to the 
eastward his packet from France; and decided to 
return to the fort. The wind had hauled to the 
north-west in the night; and the air was full of 
frost. Their progress was hindered by the ice. 
The day became exceeding cold. Sometime before 
noon, in bold water, they were caught in an ice pack. 
They could still go forward or backward, but slowly 
and not far; they were encircled by ice cakes, too 
small for footing, yet so large as to present a great 
obstacle to paddling ; and new ice formed so rapidly 
that poling along the ice-rafts was soon out of the 
» question. Two or three hours after the noon, they 
were locked, without tools for making suitable ad- 
vance or retrogression. 

Charnacd diverted himself by watching the glitter- 
ing light upon the various angles presented by the 
ice, not far away ; and in peering into the depths of 
the sullen waters ; or he lifted up his eyes to the 
mountain sides on the west, where the pines looked 
so still and warm ; or he gazed with a feeling of envy 
upon the islands, so shaggy with their coats of fir. 


IN THE ICE. 319 

Then he watched the knitting together of the ice by 
the frost needles. 

The whole mass of loose ice was being united by 
the invisible cold. Within twelve hours next com- 
ing, if the weather should not moderate, a rough ice 
field would be formed, upon which they could move 
as upon a bridge. That is to say, if they, too, should 
not be solidified, together with the chunks of ice ; for 
they were cold already, with the penetrating wind, so 
sharp, so severe, so out of season in the early May. 
The Indians believed that they could handle the ca- 
noe upon the fast forming ice, perhaps by midnight. 

Charnac^ said little, save to keep up the spirits of 
his men, one of whom had been with him many 
leagues of river and sea, in that canoe. He him- 
self loved the very sinews and the pitch daubs of 
this home of birch. Before the sun went down, Joe 
was very sure that a half acre of thick slabs of ice to 
the east of the birch, was strong enough to bear their 
weight. With more care and cunning than any wild 
creature of the forest, this half civilized man com- 
pleted his reconnoitre; and it was determined to 
work the canoe over the ice ; then turn it up edge- 
wise, or bottom up, for a wind break ; and so pass 
the night, — taking turns in watching the ice-making 
and the weather, so as to make the earliest start pos- 
sible over the ice floe toward land. 

When Charnacd took his turn first in the watch, 
he felt that he was in no condition to endure much 
exposure, but the situation itself pleased him. What 


320 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


could be more fitting to his mental state than this 
pacing up and down the small area of ice, stepping 
softly lest he break through, daring not stamp his 
feet to warm them, and fearing to build a fire lest 
their little raft of ice should go to pieces under them. 
The full moon shone clearly, and the ice was spark- 
ling in the bitter north wind. His Indians were 
asleep under the canoe. 

If indeed his jolly and hot blooded confessor was 
right in thinking him a little daft, he was now at 
least in the full possession of all his faculties, in 
circumstances which might easily madden one whose 
nerves were slightly disturbed. 

How that he had been relieved of his stiffening, 
crouched-up posture, in the cold canoe, and had 
freedom of motion, he began to be warm again. 
The very coldness of the air imparted warmth to 
his blood, — or, at least, he was not conscious that 
any of his limbs were freezing. 

His mind was full of the roaring tides of Fundy. 
Once he was absolutely sure, that he saw, approach- 
ing him from the east, a form of light stepping airily 
from one ice block to another. It approached so near, 
that he closed his eyes for dazzling. A crown of ice 
was placed upon his head. When he looked up, he be- 
held the image of light moving north in the teeth of 
the wind. And, before he could pluck up courage to 
move, he saw this form of light turn, and blow upon 
him new and fresher and colder and more icy and 
more cutting wind out of the North, — as he had seen 


IN THE ICE. 


321 


pictures of Boreas fanning the world with the breath 
of his mouth. 

He called up Joe, who took his turn in walking 
up and walking down, face to the wind and hack to 
the wind. Charnacd warmed himself as well as he 
could from the spirit jug ; and wrapped himself in his 
skins, and lay down to sleep. No, not to sleep. It 
was too light. A strange light was now in the west 
casting its rays under that side of the birch most 
open; a light which outshone the moonbeams that 
now nearly touched his feet. His head was almost 
burned, as if by strange fire. It was, he thought, 
the crown of ice. 

Failing to go to sleep, he remembered his life, as 
if numbering his days ; how he had grown worse 
instead of better in the wilderness, and had sought 
meaner things than that spiritual good which was the 
dream of his youth. Why did he not when a boy 
follow the advice of his dying mother, and enter the 
college so richly endowed by Jeanne d’Albret and the 
princes, which furnished so many eminent Protestant 
scholars ? He had given himself up, under the di- 
rection of his uncle indeed, to be crooked and twisted 
in soul by men for whose spiritual purpose he had not 
now the slightest respect. For years he had forti- 
fied himself in the worst positions he could take, by 
laying aside his private judgment, and allowing his 
conscience to waddle about on duck’s legs, — for this 
was the way his fat and oily confessor looked to him 
in that strange light. 


21 


322 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


That God had not entered into judgment against 
him was a source of great trouble. If he had only- 
met reproof, disaster. But now all his worldly plans 
had triumphed. He was at the very height of his 
power; and he despised himself. That his wicked- 
ness was not known, or recognized to be such, by 
those around him, was a source of trouble. Did they 
see how it all looked to him now, in that strange 
light ? 

‘‘The good opinion of the world is my worst 
enemy,” he said, — startling Madockawando, who now 
turned out to relieve Joe from pacing athwart their 
fast enlarging area of ice. Joe turned in, upon the back 
side of the birch, with his heels toward his master. 

Charnac4 falling into a little drowse, remembered 
the words spoken to him by Constance upon the 
evening he last saw her in France, about the divine 
companionship ; the mystical union, as she called it, 
with the Son of Man ; the biblical idea of the friend- 
ship of God offered personally to every man, as he 
remembered that it dawned upon him on his last 
voyage to Acadia. 

It was now long since he had spoken. The chill 
in his limbs was approaching his heart by a thou- 
sand unseen avenues, as if moving silently along 
every vein, every nerve, first freezing the extremi- 
ties of the arterial currents. 

He spoke but once: “I am guilty, weary, heavy 
laden, and I will go to Him for rest.” He then fell 
asleep. 


IN THE ICE. 


323 


The solitary sentinel outside could hardly keep his 
blood circulating; but he was startled to hear the 
words spoken by his master. The tones were like 
those of a little child dreaming of some far away 
land of the sun, — dreaming of light ; although 
black clouds were fast rising, and sweeping over 
the moon, — in token of an approaching change of 
weather. 

Stark and cold was the body of their master, which 
was borne homeward when the shift of the wind re- 
lieved them. 

Dark hued mourners went about the streets of 
still Castine, — so much more silent then than now. 
The Tarratines, at least, sorrowed for the dead. 


324 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XXXVIII. 

THE JESUIT FATHERS SAY MASS FOR THE 
REPOSE OF THE DEAD. 

‘C'RA CUPAVO, now in middle life, was the son 
of an old family servant of the house of Baron 
Charnac^, in Bretagne. When the Governor of 
Acadia was a student at St. Pol de Leon, in visit- 
ing the family seat where his father was born, he 
saw one day Silvestre Cupavo, in broad black hat, 
long black hair, and square cut coat, advancing 
toward him with slow and heavy step, and religious 
mien. The old man had much to say about his own 
son the friar, who, having completed his studies at 
St. Pol de Leon, had long since gone as the first 
Jesuit missionary to Acadia. 

Poutrin court, sorely against his own will, but in 
obedience to his King, took out Fra Cupavo to 
America. Biencourt was so far the son of ^ his 
father, according to the Jesuits, as to prepare a 
whipping post, to keep them to line. Cupavo was 
put in such temper, not to say mass for three 
months ; but finally he wrote a flattering letter to 
the King, in regard to the master .of Port Royal, — 
and sent with it a secret request for fitting out a 


TEE JESUITS’ MASS. 


325 


colony for Pemetic. In this company came Fra 
Le Vilin. Sir Samuel Argal of Virginia, violent, 
cruel, rapacious, broke up this settlement. 

Cupavo, upon being taken to Virginia, persuaded 
the authorities to go under his guidance to destroy 
Port Eoyal. Biencourt and six of his comrades sent 
a petition to Governor Dale to hang the priest. But 
Argal in returning south was driven to Payal by a 
storm ; and he was persuaded, as the easiest way to 
get rid of his priests, to send them to England. 

Cupavo had vowed, that, if he should escape, he 
would change the hearts of many savages in Acadia; 
so that he was eager to return with Charnacd, — find- 
ing special favor, for his father’s sake. - 

Era Le Vilin had made himself somewhat famous, 
as being the only man in La Saussaye’s Pemetic 
colony, who — upon the sudden appearance of Ar- 
gal — was plucky enough to pop up and fire a can- 
non, after the commander had repeatedly yelled, — 
“ Eire ! Eire ! ” To be sure, he did not think to aim 
before he fired; but the old historian gravely re- 
marked, that the gun made as much noise as if it 
had been English. 

If the Protestant clergy of England in that age of 
Jameses and Charleses had lived more nearly by gos- 
pel rule, the Catholic clergy of France in the age of 
Eichelieu might have been held to stricter account ; 
as it was, the rich curates spent their time in hunt- 
ing, and the poor in drinking.^ Some of the worst of 

i Masson’s Richelieu, p. 2. 


326 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


men crept into the Society of Jesus. The French 
settlers at Biguy duce were, says Wheeler’s Castine,^ 
very ignorant and depraved ; and they were excessive 
bigots in their religion: and the government was 
purely a military despotism. Cupavo and Le Vilin 
were not lacking in elasticity of conscience; and 
their devices were protean shapes of the same re- 
ligion. Of course what they did was religious. 

The sudden judgment upon Charnace was all ex- 
plained to the faithful and simple minded Indian 
saints. The Governor had greatly erred by taking 
with him, upon this fatal voyage, the blood stained 
Bible, which had been his constant companion since 
he left the St. John. It was sure to bring misfortune; 
indeed, he had never been quite himself since he had 
it. The fathers, it is said, smiled perceptibly through 
their tears, when they saw this book whose fine La 
Rochelle letterpress had been stained by the blood of 
an arch heretic. 

Before the body of the Governor of Acadia could 
be laid to rest in the fresh earth of Nautilus Island, 
the fathers decided that it would be needful to say a 
hundred masses for the repose of the inquiet dead. 
In fact the mourning friars declared that a purse of 
gold had been handed them by their late master, as 
one of his last pious acts, to celebrate masses for his 
soul, in event any casualty should ever overtake him 
in his perilous journeys. 

Jean Cupavo did not, however, in his mourning, 
1 p. 19. 


TEE JESUITS^ MASS. 


327 


altogether lose his wits. “What is to become of 
all the Governor’s property ? ” asked the priest. 
“ Is our mission of Saint Ignatius to exist only on 
paper ? To he sure His Excellency left no will or 
wife ; but with the Church all things are possible.” 

Was it possible, also, that the Church would avenge 
the father confessor for the loss of the lobes of his 
ears, which he had borne without a wrinkle or 
apparent disturbance of temper? Silent grudges 
have often borne an important part in the great 
crises of history. Why not in Acadia ? 

The jolly confessor, late conscience to the rightful 
ruler of Hew France, chuckled when he thought of 
another grudge to gratify. He had a grudge, — 
easily satisfied with some grim joke, — against the 
widow Berni^res ; so long a resident, so fair, and 
unmated. To avenge his own ill success with her, 
and. to excuse his own multifarious wrong doing, it 
had been his habit now” for a long time to slander 
her guardedly, — lest she know it^ and his master 
know it; — stating with due secrecy that she was 
the Governor’s wife. Had not his master confessed 
it ? The secret marriage might now surely be 
declared. 

He went to the widow. She was still young, and 
of unfaded beauty. Her husband, Alexandra a fur 
trader, had been lost upon the Eipogenus Falls, a 
few months after his arrival. With admirable good 
sense, and the business turn displayed by so many 
of her countrywomen, she had maintained herself 


328 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


by trafficking in furs, in a small way, upon her own 
account. She was amiable, bright, and the best of 
company. The Governor had indeed now and then 
laughed for an hour in her society, before he ceased 
to smile. 

Best of all, she was devout ; and her faith in the 
absolute supremacy upon this earth of the Vicar of 
God had never been in the slightest degree disturbed. 
Fra Le Vilin, her confessor, who better observed his 
vows than Cupavo, had used the utmost care never 
to shock her faith in the immaculate living of the 
representatives of the Church. And she had a pru- 
dish antipathy to gossip, so that the few women in 
the settlement had their mouths stopped when they 
ventured into her presence. It was often said, that 
the Governor ought to marry her; tlmt perhaps he 
would ; and the story so slyly circulated, — by the 
official’s confessor, — that he had done so in secret* 
found easy credence. Everybody knew it, as soon 
as the Governor was dead ; everybody expected her 
to appear in mourning, — everybody except herself. 

When Jean Cupavo, who was the brain of the 
Jesuit mission in Acadia, went down to call upon 
the widow, he thought he would break the news to 
her — as gently as he could with his tongue of oil — 
that she was indeed the widow of the Governor. 

He knew that she had a nose of wax, for priestly 
fingering, — if the good of the Church was plainly set 
before her. Had not Laurent Le Vilin, her confessor, 
told him so ? 


THE JESUITS' MASS. 


329 


To his surprise, she was unwilling to remain with 
him alone. There might he scandal with him in the 
house. She had heard nothing to the discredit of the 
keeper of His Excellency’s conscience, at least nothing 
which she would allow, in her simple faith ; hut she 
had the fine instincts of a woman. She said, upon 
learning that he had important matters about which 
he wished to talk with her, that she would see him, 
— if he would come with her confessor. 

They talked no small part of the night, — the 
three. And the night Tvas very cold; the fire upon 
the hearth was low, but the widow would not rise to 
re-kindle it. She hoped they would freeze, and go. 
But they had drank too much good wine to feel the 
cold. 

“The time requires haste in the decision,” urged 
Le Vilin. “The funeral cannot be long deferred; 
and we have said twenty-five of the masses already.” 

It was explained to her, and she caught at it in an 
instant, that all the property would be lost to the 
mission; that she was providentially there to save 
it; that, in perfectly honorable widowhood, she 
could bear the name of the Governor; that he had 
greatly desired to make her his wife; that he had 
often spoken of it to his confessor ; that he had, the 
day before he embarked, drafted a will and executed 
it in her favor, — naming her as his wife ; that the 
will gave large money to the mission, and to estab- 
lish the plantation and mission of St. Ignatius ; that 
the neighbors already believed, since the Governor 


330 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


had so often spoken of it, and spoken so freely, that 
she was his wife by secret marriage. 

It was all very wonderful. But had not Provi- 
dence, — asked Le Vilin, — prepared her mind to 
take such a step for the advancement of the interests 
of the Church ? The widow did not need to he re- 
minded, she knew the story too well, of the course 
taken by Madame de la Peltrie the founder of the 
Ursuline convent at Quebec; who had, — upon ad- 
vice of her confessor and the advice of the confessor 
of Alexandra Bernieres’ older brother, and other emi- 
nent divines, — feigned a marriage with M. de Ber- 
nieres, a bachelor of rank and of great wealth and 
devoted to the Church, in order to deceive her 
own father, who had threatened to disinherit her if 
she should pledge her patrimony to the Canadian 
mission. 

Still, it was all talked over again by her artful ad- 
visers, as if she had never heard of it. And the points 
in Madame de la Peltrie’s piety were brought out 
with remarkable skill, — and the holy life of Alex- 
andra Bernik’es’ brother was well known to her. 
What wonder, if her conscience, so informed, did 
not shrink from following the cue given by Cupavo. 

“ If I should do it,” said the nose of wax, “ it would 
be to please my Mother, the Church.” 

She demanded, however, to see the will. They 
agreed to produce it, when they should meet again. 

It all ended, at near day dawn ; and the widow’s 
pearly teeth were chattering with the cold. She 


THE JESUITS^ MASS. 


331 


resorted late to restorative wine, and, buried her- 
self in her furs, locked her house, and went to bed 
to prevent dying of the cold she had taken. The 
neighbors said that the poor thing was inconsolable 
and physically prostrated with grief, — now widowed 
a second time, and that too when so young. 

The widow, Hdloise, was not however so sick, but 
that she could give strict attention to business. She 
had more mind of her own than the fathers had given 
her credit for. Long ambitious in secret to become the 
Governor’s wife, why not accept the situation ; and, 
— as he did whom she admired, — use the Jesuits? 
She was devout, loyal to the Church: that might 
be, — without her being led at will by the Society of 
Jesus, whose refinements, justifying the worst, did not 
please her. Their ethics, however, were suited to her 
mind in the mood, — or her plan rather, — of the 
hour. 

If the graves of Castine were to give up their dead, 
a strange story would be told of the masses said that 
day over the cold clay in the little stone church with 
its blood colored windows and ghastly walls. 

Eoland Capon, and the two friars, prepared the will 
and witnessed it. The grim father confessor, so fat, 
so ruddy, himself turned pale as the dead, when he 
kneeled upon the cold stone floor, placed the parch- 
ment upon the ice cold body, and forged the signa- 
ture of the now dishonored Governor. 

The widow H^loise after dusk saw the will, and 
consented ; being warmer than she was the night 


332 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


before, with a roaring fire of walnut. Nothing more 
was said or done that night. It was, however, sug- 
gested that perhaps the widow would visit the church 
privately upon the morrow ; and attend to the cele- 
bration of more masses for the repose of the inquiet 
dead, — and receive some portion of the property, in 
order that she might better incur the expenses of the 
funeral. 

When the widow, — now indeed doubly a widow, 
and that so young, — visited the church upon the 
morrow, she was surprised to see the festive air the 
grisly church had put on, for the celebration of cere- 
monies for the repose of the troubled dead. 

There were a few white artificial flowers standing 
upon a table, arranged in the figure of a cross. Be- 
hind it was a curtain of crimson and gold. She was 
requested to '’stand beside the table, to receive her 
marriage portion. A hand, — which from a well 
known scar, she knew to be the hand of the Gov- 
ernor, — was extended between the folds of the cur- 
tain of crimson and gold; and from his hand she 
received her marriage portion, in a paper represent- 
ing fifty thousand livres. 

The widow Bernieres was requested now to take 
the hand of the Governor in her right hand; and 
they were, hand in hand, pronounced to be husband 
and wife. She shrieked with terror, and fell to the 
floor. 


TEE WIDOW BERNIERES. 


333 


XXXIX. 

THE WIDOW BERNIERES. 

ARLES LA TOUR married the widow of his 
worst enemy, — as if a farce should follow a 
tragedy. The truth is always stranger than fiction ; 
and no romance can be so wild as the sober story 
of the seventeenth century in the coast towns of 
dull and unromantic Maine, Nova Scotia, and New 
Brunswick. 

When La Tour returned on Easter morning from 
his Indian traffic to the neighborhood of his home, 
learning from fugitives the extent of his disaster, he 
set a watch upon the movements of Charnac^, with 
the full purpose to take his life whenever he should 
emerge from the fort. He had not seen the prepara- 
tion of the funereal birch upon the lower side of the 
fort, but in the distance he thought that he recognized 
the dark plume of his enemy, and Jean Pitchibat 
knew his peculiar paddle stroke ; — it was when the 
Indian spy and his master were standing at the 
masked battery. 

One of the papers which Charnacd sent to General 
La Tour by his chaplain, was a letter from Con- 
stance : — 


334 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Home. Before the dawn of Easter. 

My Beloved, — 

I am always praying for you. God give you the 
highest boon, even His own presence in the wilderness. I 
long for your coming. Unless we have some traitor here, 
which God forfend, I shall be able to hold the fortress. 

If there is any real peril, and God so wills, — I shall 
die in defence of our home and the religious purpose of 
our lives. 

I would that our dear child wer-e in France. 

Constance. 

So long as Constance lived, Charles la Tour was 
better than himself; he was upheld morally, and 
kept to a moderately conscientious career. After her 
death there was, as compared with his former self, a 
collapse. 

The communication sent by Charnacd to La Tour 
was a very remarkable one, and every way worthy 
the better nature of the man, and going far to atone 
for the well known faults of his character. He 
enclosed the King’s order for La Tour’s arrest ; stat- 
ing that he should not molest him, if he followed the 
things making for peace. And, with far reaching 
foresight, looking toward the peace of Acadia, he 
sent a document, witnessed by Jean Cupavo, ordering 
his subordinates upon the Penobscot, in the event of 
his own decease, — First, to recognize La Tour as 
their superior ; and Second, to co-operate with him at 
Versailles to secure his re-commission as Lieutenant 
Governor of Acadia ; and Third, to turn over to La 


THE WIDOW BEBN1EBE8, 


335 


Tour any personal property that he might he possessed 
of at the time of his decease. The amazing energy and 
practical sagacity of La Tour were alluded to, as be- 
ing of great future service to Acadia, in event of his 
own demise. 

Upon the strength of this document. General La 
Tour ventured with a few faithful retainers, into the 
neighborhood of Biguyduce, early in May; in the 
expectation, — if the way should prove clear, — of 
offering to serve under Charnacd, for the develop- 
ment of Acadia ; that henceforth they should work 
together for the good of New France, rather than 
contend with each other personally. 

Of the two steep hills behind Castine, the one east 
of the great hill on the Penobscot is the present site 
of the Maine Normal School building. It was here 
that La Tour stood upon the morning of Charnac^’s 
burial. The cold wave had passed by ; the light and 
glow of spring appeared for a few hours, — to he 
succeeded by the chill, and warmth, and alternations 
of an Acadian May. La Tour could not but think 
how often he had stood there with Constance, sweep- 
ing the horizon ; he looked north to the headland on 
the river where Governor Pownal, a century and a 
half later, built his fort, — to the Blue Hill rising 
north of east, and the intervening expanse of the 
winding Biguyduce, — to the Pemetic mountains on 
the east, and to the heights southwest, standing as 
mighty fortresses of the shining Bay on the south, — 
to the great islands of the Bay westerly, and Megun- 


336 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


ticut rising against the sky, — to Passageewakeag in 
the northwest, where the strange story of recent 
years has told us that La Tour’s great enemy has been 
seen under the clear waters ploughing up the harbor 
bottom, to increase the depth near the spot where he 
grounded his ships. 

From this height La Tour saw the funereal cortege 
emerge from the church ; and he watched the flotilla 
of canoes which moved toward i^autilus Island ; and 
saw afar the burial train when it re-formed upon 
the shore, and disappeared in the pines. Constance 
with her spiritual nature might have divined what 
great man had fallen ; but Charles la Tour reasoned 
like a military man, that it was a favorable time to 
explore the settlement when the inhabitants and 
even the garrison were for the most part absent. 
Stealing with fox -like tread among the thickets, he 
descended the slope, and approached the hamlet. He 
saw a few Indian women, watching the water for the 
reappearance of the mourners. And he listened to 
their conversation. 

They were debating the merits of the deceased. It 
had been a shock to them, that a rumor of possible 
heresy had been floating over the village ; so that on 
this account the priests had been more willing to 
adopt Joe Takouchin’s notion to bury the Governor’s 
body upon the island, out of the church shadow. 
Joe’s wife settled the matter once for all by al- 
luding to the character of Constance; and saying 
that any one who was devoted as he was to such 


TEE WIDOW B ERNIE RES. 


337 

a woman, was as near to being a saint as Fra 
Cupavo. 

La Tour withdrew a little from Joe’s lodge, and 
awaited his return. By the aid of this trusty servant, 
— who had made sure before daylight to bury Con- 
stance’s Bible in Charnac^’s grave, stealing it away 
from Cupavo’s cabin, — a private hour was secured 
from the reverend father, when Joe might see him in 
the evening. La Tour went with Joe to see the 
priest. His business was broached with such delicacy, 
that General La Tour and the Jesuit were soon upon 
easy terms for conversation. 

“ The late Governor,” remarked La Tour, after drain- 
ing his second glass, and kindling his tobacco in 
Cupavo’s cosey bachelor’s den, sent to me a certain 
paper looking toward the peace ^of Acadia ; for the 
promotion of which he desired the co-operation of 
the Society of Jesus. I have therefore determined, 
for myself, although not yet convinced that you are 
right, at least to make no stand upon matters of faith. 
Why should we repeat here the religious wars which 
have torn in pieces our beloved France ? ” 

‘^But you have no treasury to fall back upon,” 
interposed the practical priest. 

“ My money which I lost by the fortunes of war is 
indeed in France, in the care of my son’s guardian ; 
but it can never earn so much in Brittany as it will 
if reinvested in Acadia.” Then he looked sharply at 
the priest. He saw nothing but a still cold glitter in his 
immovable eyes, so well walled up in adipose tissue. 

22 


338 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


“ The late Governor,” added La Tour, “ executed a 
paper, devoting to my use in our Acadian enterprises 
whatever property he might have at his decease. You 
must remember witnessing to the signature.” 

Jean Cupavo involuntarily felt for the lobes of his 
ears ; first one, then the other. “ I could better re- 
member, if I should see the document.” 

La Tour produced the paper ; but so held it, that 
the priest could read without taking it in hand. 
Cupavo had not read it when witnessing to the Gov- 
ernor’s signature, and he desired to take it into his 
own hands ; as he said, — for more convenient read- 
ing. At this instant Joe drew near. The priest saw 
at his side, gleaming in the fire light, a long knife 
held in the Indian’s right hand. The Jesuit’s urgency 
to take the document into his own hands was abated ; 
but his face turned red with rage, like a Castine lob- 
ster. But he checked himself from speaking. 

Next moment, presto, the protean priest, who 
had spent years in adapting himself to circum- 
stances, burst into a most immoderate fit of laugh- 
ter ; shaking his immense body, as if he had earth- 
quakes within. It seemed that he would never be 
done. 

Discerning the manner of man before him, — pliant 
as to his faith, keen for a bargain, not unwilling to 
co-operate with the Brotherhood of Loyola, — it had 
occurred to Cupavo to propose to La Tour a marriage 
with the late Governor’s widow, as the easiest and 
wisest way to compromise. 


THE WIDOW BERNIERES. 


339 


Apologizing for his unseasonable mirth, he prof- 
fered his guest the choicest of his wine ; and in what 
was apparently the most irrelevant manner, began to 
shift the conversation into a jovial come-and-go, — 
touching La Tour here and there, as if he would 
sound him through and through, and know every part 
of his nature : — 

"‘Are not the wines of France improved by sea- 
voyaging and the quality of soil in our Acadian cel- 
lars ? ” “We could get on much better with you, in 
the business you propose, if you were to take a devout 
Catholic for your wife.” “Let me fill your glass. 
Which do you prefer, the brandy of Bayonne or of 
Nantz ? ” “ Did you not know, that the Governor’s 

property went to his wife ? He was secretly married ; 
and gave only a mere sop to the Church.” “ How 
much was the last year fur trade worth upon the St. 
John?” “The Governor’s widow is very handsome. 
I ’d marry her myself, if it were not for my vows.” 
“I fear that your pipe does not suit you.” “The 
woman is pious, and will do well by the Church with 
her money ; and your Eastern trade will support you in 
great expenditure, besides your contributions to our 
poor mission. Then there will be peace in Acadia ; 
and we shall have leisure to baptize the savages 
instead of fighting you.” 

The jocund priest now renewed his untimely mirth; 
knowing not how horrible the proposition seemed to 
La Tour. Cupavo had, however, used the liquors 
freely ; and he ran on from one thing to another, with 


340 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


a vast deal of method in his mad talk, changing from 
grave to gay, or mirth to melancholy, as might best 
compel his guest to keep up his end of the conversa- 
tion. La Tour observed that his host merely sipped 
from his cup ; that his free rambling without reason 
was nonsense only in appearance, as the Jesuit changed 
from relevant to irrelevant topics in a gossiping way 
hardly pausing for a reply. 

The proposition was at last baldly made by the 
priest, that La Tour should execute an agreement 
to marry the Governor’s widow, as the basis for 
harmonizing all interests in Acadia. 

For once La Tour’s self-satisfaction and even-bal- 
ance was disturbed ; although not visibly so in that 
dim apartment, whose darkness was only made the 
more apparent by the smoking wick upon the dark 
and greasy table. 

When the wood fire flickered, and for a moment 
illuminated the rusty and baggy suit of Cupavo, 
and kindled his red face, it- only revealed to La 
Tour sharp eyes penetrating his secret thoughts 
and reading his decision in his indecision. There 
was something almost jaunty in the priest’s sombre 
clothing, and in the way he wore his black cap 
when he accompanied General La Tour to the 
door. The point he had made, had punctured the 
reserve of his guest; and he was likely to hear 
from him further. 

It was lighter out of doors than it was within the 
Breton’s rough hewn logs of cedar. The dawn with 


THE WIDOW BERNIERES. 


341 


light tints was already touching the mirror-like har- 
bor of Biguyduce. La Tour’s canoe was soon gliding 
over the shining expanse ; and, before the sun was 
up, he stood at the grave of Charnacd upon the isle of 
Nautilus. 


342 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XL. 


BEFORE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET. 

H ARLES LA TOUR’S heart was troubled; he 



had no home, — his child in Bretagne, his 
wife singing among saints glorified. Should he now 
think on God ? He thought on La Tour. 

His enemy was dead. Here was his gTave. This 
was satisfactory. That he had been bewitched in his 
last days seemed probable ; Fra Cupavo was probably 
right in this. His actions could not be accounted for 
upon rational principles. Alas, he feared, that his 
poor dying Constance must have had something to do 
with it ; as Charnac^’s strange conduct had begun in 
the very hour of victory. 

Now here was this same Cupavo — with ears 
wisely shortened — attempting to bewitch La Tour. 
He did not like it. It was inappropriate at this 
time. 

But what should he do about the property ? The 
widow had it. He had nothing. He would have 
nothing till the return of his packet, — enough for a 
trader, but not for a Governor. He would consider 
the situation. 


BEFORE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET 343 

With an excellent appetite, he drew from his hav- 
ersack his simple Micmac fare, dried herring and 
parched corn ; and, — stretching under the pines near 
where Charnacd’s body was at rest, — he broke his fast. 

A strange light — not of the sun which was still 
below the horizon — kindled in the thicket of firs 
upon the north ; and threw a strong shadow of the 
trunk of the pine tree, under which he was lying, 
athwart the grave. La Tour hardly noticed it. His 
mind was confused by the coming in of thoughts 
unusual to him. 

What was there in the hour, the place, which exer- 
cised a strange spell over him ? Why had he been 
the enemy of Charnacd ? Taking from his pocket 
the personal card which his enemy had left with him 
upon their first interview at Cape Sable, he read it 
over, — “ Charles de Menou, Sieur Hilaire Charnacd.” 
Charles la Tour then arose, and laid the card rever- 
ently upon the head of the grave toward the west ; 
and he said : “ God do so to me, — if I ever remem- 
ber his faults, or say aught but good of his memory.” 

Then he noticed the strange shadow across the sod ; 
but the light was suddenly withdrawn, and he never 
saw it again. 

It might have been his dry herring which reminded 
him of his rolling reverence Jean Cupavo, so dry, so 
thirsty, so smoky, so little to his taste ; he must 
be one of the worst of men, who would stop at 
nothing. 

It would, however, be proper for him to offer con- 


344 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


dolence to the widow. He would like to see her. 
Perhaps he would call. 

And he wondered how much property his rival had 
left. The income, for a long time, must have been 
more than one hundred thousand livres. Pra Cupavo 
ought, indeed, to have a hearing. It would be difficult 
to get possession, upon the strength of his document 
under Charnac4’s own hand, unless the fathers were 
favorable and the widow with her later testament was 
favorable. He must not fail to reflect upon the sit- 
uation in which he found himself — alone in that 
spring morning, upon the tide washed isle, at the new 
grave of his fallen foe, and a scheming priest and 
handsome but weeping widow across the harbor in 
front of him. 

A chill struck him through and through to the 
marrow. He must be taking cold. 

Leaving the fragments of his breakfast, which he 
had hardly touched, — his hunger having strangely 
left him, so that he loathed the food, — he went to 
the water-side, hoping to And a sweet spring some- 
where under the bank, and hoping that the birds 
would be attracted to the grave of his sleeping foe by 
the food he had left under the pines. 

La Tour slept in his canoe in a sunny nook, in the 
lee of the island no small part of the day. Late in 
the afternoon, he paddled up the Biguyduce river to 
the camp where he had left his retainers. By the 
message which they had left under a pointed stone, 
he soon found their new place of concealment. Eat- 


BEFORE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET. 345 

ing a hearty dinner of fresh trout and venison, he 
prepared then to go and see the widow. He was un- 
accountably cold ; he had, he believed, taken cold. 
Putting on, under his outer garments, a short and 
close fitting coon skin jacket, he drank a large 
measure of hot rum, and left the camp. 

The widow’s house was damp and cold, with a sep- 
ulchral closeness in the air. It seemed to La Tour 
like a tomb with a low fire in one end of it, when he 
entered. It was dark : but — as he had secured a 
note of introduction from Era Cupavo in case he 
should conclude to call, and since the late Governor’s 
holy confessor had been there that day with Era Le 
Vilin less in ill-humor than he was commonly, and 
as they had mentioned that General la Tour was in 
town with important papers from His Excellency her 
honored husband now deceased, — the widow received 
the distinguished stranger with great cordiality. She 
even extended her hand, when he announced his 
name. 

It was like the hand of the dead. La Tour in- 
stinctively dropped it; unlocking as if by a spring 
his large hearty hand-gvasp, — like a steel trap sud- 
denly opened to free its victim. The widow, twice a 
widow, almost fell to the floor. There was heat in 
La Tour’s hand, — perhaps a hidden Are in it. She 
had taken no human hand in her own since she was 
for a moment riveted to that frozen hand out of the 
realms of the dead. 

As she half turned, La Tour quickly seized her left 


346 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


hand in his right, and led her to the settle by the fire. 
“ Madame, I fear that you are ill. I trust that I am 
not intruding in the hour of your great sorrow.” 

But for the terror in her heart, the widow would 
have smiled a little at this tender mention of her in- 
expressible grief. She had hardly schooled her mind 
to her feigned second widowhood. 

She had not thought that her right hand was cold ; 
and had been quite unconscious of any peculiar 
sensation in it, or lack of sensation. 

I fear,” she answered, that I shall sometime fall 
from paralysis.” 

In a moment, using her left hand at first, she began 
to disturb the low fire ; and then, as if forgetting her- 
self, she applied both hands to that miracle-working 
— the creation of sheets of flames out of dry sticks, 
glowing coals and smouldering embers. Finally she 
put on a fresh log. Gentle, genial, resolute, enter- 
prising Charles la Tour, — withal tender in the house 
of sorrow as he had easily learned when with Con- 
stance — was really making a good deal of an im- 
pression upon the widow; and stirring up the fire 
might dr}’- her tears, — and, possibly, take the chill 
out of her right hand. 

After that, she failed to notice any clammy chill 
in her hand; but thenceforward, she found herself 
shrinking from giving her hand to any neighbor or 
old acquaintance. And no one touched her right 
hand again, until a year after when La Tour took it 
upon their wedding day, when she shrieked outright 


BEFOBE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET ^ 347 

and he dropped her hand, — as they stood in the 
cold gray morning within the shivering church at 
Pentagotietd 

Too much, however, has been now anticipated. It 
is not likely that the widow — at that moment when 
La Tour led her to the fire thought of anything more 
than that she welcomed a human voice in place of 
the sepulchral sound that had kept calling to her, as 
she was engaged in her rounds of domestic service 
and in her preparation for the funeral, and during 
that solemn service which had almost frozen her 
heart’s blood and stilled its beating. 

La Tour had stood a moment, after leading her to 
the settle ; but sat down, when she arose to finger the 
fire. His heart had been indeed so cold, since his 
wife died ; and cold since his little son had been 
shipped so suddenly out of his sight, without his first 
pressing him to his own bosom. And he felt glad, 
that, instead of being in his lonely camp, or closeted 
with an intriguing friar, or visiting the grave of one 
so long hostile to him, he was now in the presence of 

1 She finally died of paralysis ; having lived most happily with 
General La Tour for many years. But after this wedding, she neVer 
used her right hand again for friendly greeting or a friend’s pledge. 
Charles La Tour himself never knew what made her hand so cold; 
and with great delicacy refrained from alluding to it, even upon the 
wedding day. At that time, the priests — who had previously 
officiated upon a similar occasion so ghastly that they must have 
been terrified by it when they came to die — thought that the out- 
cry of La Tour’s bride was not strange, in that place, with such 
memories as must have overwhelmed her. 


348 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


a woman whose eyes were kindly, and whose lips were 
of gentle accent. 

He had feared, when he learned that Charnacd left 
a widow, that she must be strongly prejudiced against 
himself as her husband’s bitter antagonist. And it 
puzzled him a little that the widow was not appar- 
ently inconsolable. He did not want to ask her how 
long she had been married to Charnacd, or to appear 
curious. She plainly had no feeling of aversion to 
him. He began once to say, — 

My interests — and — those of — your honored hus- 
band — were, — you must have known — too well, — 
were inimical.” But he had hard work to get through 
with the sentence. She looked at him in a quizzical 
way; as a child would, innocent of wrong intent 
when wrong in deed. Then she slowly answered, 
liesitating as he had done, — looking him fixedly in 
the eye : — 

It will be gratifying to me, if you do not allude 
to my husband ; it is very painful for me to have you 
do so.” Then she dropped her eyes, and added tim- 
idly, — I would rather — you would talk — of your- 
self, — and — of — myself ; — or of any business you 
have with me. I understood — that — you had — 
important papers.” 

What could La Tour do ? It was plain from the 
widow’s manner, that she could but keep her eyes on 
his fine figure ; and that, when she made way for him 
to sit at her side on the settle by the great fire-place, 
she must be in a state of mind ready to receive favor- 


BEFORE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET. 349 


ably any proposal be had to make — in a purely 
business way. 

“ The papers which I have brought indicate a desire 
that the past be forgotten, and that henceforth the 
property interests, and the political interests, and the 
social interests, and — I had almost said — the do- 
mestic interests,” — pausing and looking into the eyes 
of the widow — “of Acadia should be so managed 
that my interests shall not be separate from the in- 
terests which his Excellency sought to establish.” 

“As it is now,” was the reply, “the Jesuits have 
taken possession of two thirds of all the personal 
property which Lieutenant General Charnac4 left, 
giving me one third. His real property he had him- 
self deeded outright to his sister at St. Oiner’s, — its 
use to be at her control after his death.” 

Her voice indicated that the Jesuits were not favor- 
ites with her, and that her recent confidence in them 
had abated. 

La Tour, after a moment’s pause, as if looking at 
the papers which he held in his hand, turning them 
toward the fire light, in such a way that the widow at 
his side could easily read with him, suggested, — 

“ It would appear, that the purpose of Charnacd 
changed somewhat, and that his last will did not con- 
firm this paper. Herein, he directed me to take pos- 
session ; and to call upon the friars to co-operate with 
me in securing everything : The name Jean Cupavo, 
Missionary of the Society of Jesus, is attached hereto 
as a witness. You will, I know pardon me, if I in- 


350 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


quire whether you have yourself with your own eyes 
seen the will ? ” 

‘'N’o, I have not. I saw only that part relating 
to myself, and the signature, — which I have since 
found does not correspond with the Governor’s hand 
upon my trading permit.” 

But has not one third of the property been paid 
to you ? ” 

The widow gasped, started from her seat, turned 
pale, and fell upon the hearth. 

Here was indeed some mystery. 

La Tour, without thinking, touched her right hand. 
It was like ice, but clammy like the flesh of the dead. 

Here was indeed some mystery. But the situation 
was embarrassing. His hostess was evidently very 
ill. He feared that she had fallen by a paralytic 
stroke. With some care, he raised her to the settle ; 
and placed under her head a fox-skin rug rolled for 
a pillow ; and then he stood with his back to the fire, 
watching for the revival of his patient. Turning, 
after a little, he looked far up the throat of the great 
chimney, — and he saw what appeared to be a coin- 
bag black with smoke ; and from it hung an icicle, 
like a stalactite, — it was however so blackened that 
he did not feel certain, — and a puff of smoke from 
the fire, filling his eyes, he turned his head, and saw 
that his patient had recovered from her swoon, and 
was now sitting up. 

Pressing her temples with the thumb and fore- 
finger of her left hand, she said, — “ I am giddy. If 


BEFOBE SUNRISE AND AFTER SUNSET. 351 

you will heat the poker, we will burn a little brandy 
infused with bluets, then my head will be clear. You 
will find the bottle in the side-board.” 

As she delicately sipped the scorched brandy, La 
Tour required no urging to visit the side-board for a 
draught of wine. 

Charnac^’s widow, was evidently not well enough 
to talk further ; nor, at the late hour, was it desirable. 

As he left the door, a red meteor blazed across the 
sky, as if falling near, — and it divided into two balls 
of fire, and dropped into the sea between the fort and 
Nautilus Island. 


352 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


XLL 


LA TOUR 


FTER General La Tour had made such business 



arrangements as seemed most likely to pro- 
mote peace in Acadia, he sailed for France. Once 
upon his ship, ploughing the waves of mid ocean, he 
had time to think. And then it seemed as strange 
to him, as to the prosaic historians to whom he has 
been an enigma for two centuries, that after all he 
had agreed — upon his return from France with a 
renewed commission as Lieutenant General of Acadia 
— to marry the widow of Charnacd. 

With a very large element of hopefulness in his 
heart, he took the world easily, one day with another, 
doing what seemed best for that day, and burdening 
himself little with cares for the past or the future. 
He reviewed his ground with some care ; and be- 
lieved that he had made no mistake, in carrying out 
the plan he formed in his boyhood to have a sharp 
eye to his own interests. And it was clearly for his 
interest to have peace in Acadia. 

This point, then, being settled, — he smoked his 
pipe as he sat cross-legged upon the quarter deck, or 
w^ent forward and told yarns with the seamen. 


LA TOUR. 


353 


Upon disembarking at Vannes, La Tour made bis 
way to Vitrd, some seven leagues east of Eennes, and 
there upon the picturesque bank of the Vilaine, he 
found his son in the home of Henrietta, who had 
married the child’s guardian, Lamotte. They lived 
in a house near the old feudal castle, in after genera- 
tions occupied by Madame de S^vignd. 

Protestant character in France had begun to tell. 
The able merchants and manufacturers of the re- 
formed faith were found to be men worthy of trust. 
The walls of Yitrd, and their flanking towers, offered 
good shelter in troublous times ; so that public Prot- 
estant worship was maintained here more than a 
hundred years. The son of Constance came to be of 
man’s estate in just such a community as his mother 
would have selected for him. And he was then con- 
nected by marriage with the house of the most high 
and mighty princess of Tarente.^ 

The Protestant religious services were observed at 
her chateau, — it being her manorial right, — after 
the authorities had prohibited public worship. Upon 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the princess 
retired to Heidelberg ; ^ and Charles the son of Con- 
stance removed to Frankfort, — the princess dying at 
his house in 1693. He returned to Yitrd in later 
years, and lived to such age that he held in his arms 

1 Einilie of Hesse, widow of Henri Charles de la Tremouille, 
Prince de Tarente et de Talraond, due de Thouars. She was the 
daughter of the landgrave William of Hesse Cassel. 

^ Certain families, who had worshipped in her house at Yitr^, 
escaped to South Carolina. 

23 




354 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


his infant grandson Thdophile Malo Corret de La 
Tour D’Auvergne, who fell at Oberhausen4 

Charles la Tour of Acadia confirmed the action of 
Charnacb in respect to property and the guardianship 
for his son. And it was, in after years, upon a voy- 
age to visit this son, that he perished by encounter- 
ing an iceberg off the American coast. The son found 
that the name La Tour had been long honored among 
the families of France, reaching back through many 
centuries ; a name which, in subsequent generations, 
has maintained a high place upon the roll of able and 
useful men. 

The Queen Eegent, — Louis XIII. being dead, and 
Eichelieu his master dead, — gave Charles la Tour a 
new commission, which recited a formidable list of 

1 Kepresenting the last drop of the blood of Constance, the ca- 
reer of him to whom Napoleon gave a sword inscribed “ To the First 
Grenadier of France,” but who returned the sword, saying that sol- 
diers were equals ; who refused promotion, but had eight thousand 
men put into his company as the vanguard ; who in the hour of 
peace was a close student and an author whose works are in good 
repute to-day, but who was terrible in the day of battle ; for whom 
the whole French army mourned three days when he was slain ; in 
love for whom every soldier set apart a day’s pay to purchase a 
silver urn to hold his heart, which was borne with his regiment ; 
whose name was called at the daily muster roll for fourteen years, 
till the very close of the Empire, before any one would answer that 
La Tour had died upon the field of honor ; whose sabre was placed 
in the Church of the Invalids ; whose Spartan simplicity of life, 
and self devotement to his country, is commemorated by the mon- 
ument still standing upon the old battle ground in Bavaria, — all 
this may have been foreshadowed in the meteor seen by Constance 
in that winter night in the Acadian Wild. 


t 


LA TOUR. 


355 


good things which he had never performed, and stated 
in round terms that he had been lied about by his 
enemies.^ It was his first appearance at court ; and 
it was agreed that the wonderful suavity of the Aca- 
dian woodsman would have opened for him a high 
destiny had he chosen to \)e a courtier. 

Governor La Tour’s most marvellous performance 
in France, however, was his persuading Suzanne, the 
devout woman of St. Omer, sister of Charnac4, not 
only to bequeath to him the real estate she had re- 
ceived from her brother, but considerately to die 
within a twelve month.^ The imperturbable self 
complacency, and diplomatic skill of La Tour, were 
a large part of his working capital ; and the interest 
of La Tour was always uppermost in his mind. The 
canoness was the more easily persuaded by a letter 
addressed to her by — her late brother’s confessor — 
Fra Cupavo; in consideration of which La Tour 
never disturbed the provisions made in the bogus 
will for the benefit of the Jesuits. La Tour also had 
letters from Fra Le Vilin to the learned men in the 
Jesuit College at St. Omer’s, where he had been a 
student. When Suzanne walked the ramparts of this 
fortified town, — which have since been made so 
beautiful by the planting of elms in peaceful genera- 
tions, — she looked upon him as the most pious per- 
son in the New World; an opinion which, in La 

1 Hanney’s Acadia, pp. 189, 190. 

2 McGregor’s British America, I. 281 ; Haliburton’s Nova Sco- 
tia, I. 60. 




356 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


Tour’s mind, went far toward healing the wound in- 
flicted by Ward of Ipswich who had spoken of him 
so doubtingly in Boston. The sparkling fountains of 
the city, and the floating islands upon which cattle 
were feeding as upon green rafts drawn ashore at 
night, and the gardens north of the city, — all in- 
terested La Tour. He told the canoness, as he did 
Winthrop about the Boston training, that he never 
saw anything like it before, and that he would not 
have believed it if he had not seen it. 

The widow Bernieres, the relict of the late Gov- 
ernor, was more ruddy upon the return of La Tour ; 
the Acadian climate being modified, and better 
adapted to her constitution. The articles set forth, 
that the end and principal design of the marriage 
was the peace and tranquillity of the country; the 
ceremony being attested by the very reverend father 
St. Leonard de Chartes, Vice Prefect, et custode de 
la mission, who had charge of Charnacd’s Indian 
Seminary at Port Koyal; by Prdre Jean Desnouse 
St. PranQoise Marie; by J. Jacquelin, Provost de St. 
Martin ; and by La Verdure et Bourgeois, Temoins.^ 

If the religious sensibilities of Hdloise had ever 
suffered a shock, she had been amply reassured by 
the pliant La Tour, and the assiduous attention of the 
friars. Her mind was too broad to throw up her 
faith in the whole Church, for any wrong doing of 
local representatives; and she had no light to lead 

1 Consult Murdoch’s Nova Scotia, I. 113 ; Hanney’s Acadia, 
p. 191 ; Wheeler’s Castine, p. 19. 


LA TOUR. 


357 


her to question the Church itself. Accordingly, at 
the suggestion of her confessor, she mingled, in her 
husband’s cup of the wedding wine, powder of relics 
of the Saint Brdbeuf, the Jesuit father who suffered 
martyrdom at the hands of the Iroquois. And after 
that, neither she nor the friars had reason to suspect 
Governor La Tour of heresy. 

Particularly he clung to the Jesuitical maxims 
when the Protestant Emmanuel Le Borgue, of La 
Eochelle, appeared with improved artillery, and began 
to take La Tour’s stone forts one after another, in 
enforcing his claims to the whole of Acadia, upon 
the judgment of a French court of justice on ac- 
count of Charnacd’s debt to him of two hundred 
and sixty thousand livres. It would not be for 
the interest of La Tour to pay debts contracted in 
fighting himself. He invoked the aid of England ; 
and surrendered Acadia, forts and all, promptly to 
Cromwell. 

Then he flew upon swift wings over sea ; and 
showed the Protector his original papers, — that he 
had been created by England a baronet, and that he 
had received a great English land grant; he said 
nothing about his shooting with great guns at his 
own father and the English flag, but he asked to be 
made the British Governor of Acadia. Cromwell 
gave him the commission; and more land, — three 
hundred miles inland measured around the shores of 
Eundy, — it being agreed between the uncompromis- 
ing Cromwell and the compromising La Tour, that 


358 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


none but Protestants should be permitted to reside 
on this land.^ 

As Governor of Acadia under the Commonwealth, 
La Tour wrested their property from the irreligious 
priests of Pentagotiet, and bundled the Jesuits out of 
the country ; they on their part loudly proclaiming, 
that such ingratitude and false faith was just what 
might be expected of Protestants, who were no better 
than the infidel Turks. La Tour did not even retort, 
that it was no sin to lie to the Jesuits ; but that was 
w^hat he thought. 

He introduced Franciscans from Aquitane to carry 
on the Micmac and Malachite mission work, the gray 
friars Vimount, La Fl^che, Vieuxpont; humble, self 
devoted workers, who, even if they baptized with lit- 
tle discrimination, exerted a most favorable influence. 
They united the Indians of Acadia ; rendered them 
friendly to the whites; improved their social and 
domestic condition; and imparted the most simple 
elements of religious faith and practice, — which in 
the lives of many brought forth good fruit. This 
work was continued generation after generation, an 
influence more favorable every way than any other 
attainable. 

Governor La Tour then established the Presbyte- 
rian Church in Acadia. Simon Imbert, one of the 
ruling elders, remarked to M. Eochet that La Tour 
was full as good as the average, — so far as he could 
see. Eochet repEed that the Governor had only one 

1 Hanney, p. 201, 


LA TOUR. 


359 


fault : it was too apparent that he winced when Eev- 
erend Hugh McLean preached on carnal-mindedness. 
That the Governor was respectably religious, there is 
no doubt. 

Neither is it a matter of doubt, that he did not pay 
Major Gibones his £2500, when he had the money. 
La Tour had squeezed Boston like an orange; he 
then threw it away, — why should he pick it up ? 
The New England historians have avenged the Boston 
merchants; but Acadia, La Tour’s own country, is 
kindly to his memory. 

Charles La Tour knew Acadia too well to hold it. 
It was liable to change masters any day; and be dealt 
out to new parties in new grants. He therefore 
beamed upon Sir Thomas Temple, through the fogs 
of London ; and, like a sharp business man, crowded 
through a sale of half his Cromwellian land grant, 
while his stock was highest, — then retired to private 
life. It was none too soon. Charles II. restored 
Acadia to France ; and Temple was ruined. 

La Tour and bis wife Hdloise had a home, with 
beautiful surroundings, at Port Eoyal. Their de- 
scendants — of good family as this world goes — have 
borne well their part in the Acadian history, improv- 
ing their stock during more than two hundred years : 
in marrying and giving in marriage, the rearing of 
children, the sawing of lumber, the sailing of ships, 
the building of churches, the fighting of such battles 
as offered, — living and dying, and entering into the 


unseen. 


360 


CONSTANCE OF ACADIA. 


H^loise was always a devout Catholic ; and she 
never told her husband of her false marriage. It was 
reported, however, by Eoland Capon upon his death- 
bed after La Tour’s decease. And the fishermen got 
hold of it, and transformed it after their fashion in 
the swift passing generations, — until to-day wherever 
a man and woman and a rolly-poly priest are figured 
in ice upon the rocks along the ancient Acadian 
coast, — which sometimes occurs where the water- 
brooks pour down high banks into the sea keeping 
the bowlders and ragged ledges glistening with fresh 
ice all winter, — there where icy hands are clasped 
in marriage, no man will fish summer or winter, and 
crafts give a wide berth to the coast of ill omen. 

And still, along the Acadian coast, are rarely seen 
strange lights, moving hither and thither, perhaps 
among icebergs from the north, most frequently upon 
the reefs near Cape Sable. Is it not said, that this 
light walked the waves like a spirit, smoothing down * 
the rough billows, before the ship of Bergier the 
prominent La Eochelle merchant, whom Louis XIY. 
named as his Lieutenant in Acadia, after the country 
had passed from La Tour and the English rule to 
France ? And is not the wreck of D’Anville’s fleet 
— the Armada inimical to the Protestant interests of 
the New World — upon the ledges near Cape Sable, 
attributed by some to a star-like dancing light which 
misled the helmsman, and the sudden rise of a great 
gale from the south ? 

And the pleasant farm lands near Annapolis, the 


LA TOUR. 


361 


old Port Eoyal, are sometimes visited, in the season 
of vintage, by a singular illumination upon dark 
nights. And men when alone in any trouble have 
, often spoken of it, particularly those who are very 
poor, who live near the sea and draw their food from 
the waters. And the light is always seen moving 
over the surface of the Bay of the Eio Hermoso north 
of the Fox islands, upon a certain night early in May. 
Once it has Been seen at low tide tracing the rem- 
nants of the old pier at Gas tine, and moving about 
the depression in the soil which marks the old fort. 
It has never been seen floating above the tides of 
Fundy since the second night after the fall of La 
Tour’s fort, when the chaplain affirmed that he saw 
it, sweeping swiftly into the open sea. 

How little would Constance have been satisfied so 
to live in the traditions of mem Was it not rather 
her own expectation, the assurance in which she died, 
that she would return home at last, and dwell in far 
off spheres of light, endowed with perpetual youth ? 


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TO THE READER. 





TO THE READER 


\ “NOVEL” way, or “new” “unusual” way, of 
sifting and combining historical events is often 
attractive ; but its usefulness will be in proportion to 
the number of readers who are led by it to study the 
best authorities easily attainable, and to hold fast 
only that which is good and beautiful and true. 
Although the footnotes follow the rule of the “ novel” 
text, yet many of them carry their character upon 
their faces, and lead to recognized standards : when 
used in connection with a good historical chart, no 
studious person can go amiss. 

The writer is indebted most of all to private papers 
in his possession : that these papers exhibit the es- 
sential facts in a new light will be acknowledged by 
every candid historical student. 

If he has been led by them to locate the contest 
described in chapters III. and V. differently from some 
other writers, it is to be remembered that authorities 
differ to a surprising degree in regard to the whole 
story. For example, the discrepancy between Win- 
throp and Hutchinson alluded to upon page 216, 


366 


TO THE HEADER. 


would indicate that one wrote upon rumor. The 
point is not important. Haliburton’s Nova Scotia, 
I. 55, 59, is probably right. More singularly, the 
historians differ in regard even to the locality of 
the events alluded to in chapters XXXIV. and 
XXXV. Gesner’s New Brunswick, London, 1847, 
pp. 25, 26; Haliburton, I. 58 ; and M. Rameau, — 
are upon one side. Williamson’s Maine, and Fer- 
nald’s Canada, although differing by two years in 
the dates assigned; Charlevoix’s History, II. 196; 
and Hazard upon the Gibones’ mortgage, — are 
upon the other side : having the best of it, without 
doubt. If these obscure passages in history are not 
important enough to contend about, no discussion 
need be raised as to the locality of the quarrel be- 
tween the La Tours. Nor need any question be 
raised if, — upon grounds justified by the wisdom 
of the Greeks, — one character in the history has 
been treated as if he had never existed. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 


TT would be entirely unjust to the authors men- 
tioned below, if the reader fails of instituting the 
comparisons now indicated : — 

Page 87. Vase of ice. Vide Noble’s After Ice- 
bergs with a Painter. 

Page 116. Two wolves skulking. Alexander’s 
L’Acadie, p. 15. 

Page 218. The taking of the Castor. Compare 
with Hathaway’s New Brunswick, Prederickton, 
1846, p. 13. 

Page 235. The reply of the father of Constance to 
the Governor. Vide Baird’s Huguenots in America ; 
consulting"" Bernon ” in the index. 

Page 302. " Tender loving words,” etc., N. B. S., 

worthy of all honor. 

Page 308. Twenty-third Psalm. Vide Oevvres 
De Clement Marot. Eoven, 1596. Tradvctions, p. 
187. 

Page 313. "It is your part to guide me to 
heaven.” Abbott’s Maine, p. 69, evidently refers 
to this. The words " Poutrincourt ” and "Biard,” 


368 


A CKNO WLED QMENTS, 


in the Index of Parkman’s Pioneers of France, will 
lead to Lescarbot. The second of the worthies, Biard, 
is an interesting character. 

Page 318. " God had withdrawn the light forever.” 
There is a suggestive passage in the Talmud, relating 
to the first night after our fallen parents were driven 
from Paradise. 

Page 330. Madame de la Peltrie. Vide Park- 
man’s Jesuits, pp. 171-3. 

Page 357. Br^beufs relics. Vide Baird’s Hug. 
in Am. pp. 119, 120. 



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